The Heavens lay open and the Moon was full.

The heavens lay open and the Moon was full, and the clock had just struck nine. With friends I'd spent the evening at Clamard, near Paris, where Monsieur de Guigy, seigneur of that place, generously regaled us, and now together we passed our journey in quiet contemplation of that saffron ball in the sky.

We drowned our eyes in the great star before us, which looked to us our attic window opening into heaven, to another perhaps the shining dish in which Diana dressed Apollo's curls, to yet another as if the Sun, having taken off and put away its rays for the day, peered down at us through a window, to see what we are up to when it is not around.

But I - say I - I who want to stir my fantasies into your own, I believe, and not frivolously as you believe, to tickle time along, I believe the Moon is a world like ours, and our world is a moon to theirs.

Some of my company loosed great gales of laughter.

Quite so, but perhaps they look at us and make fun of the one who says ours here is a world like theirs.

I assured them this was the opinion of many learned heads, but alas, this only moved them to further fits.

However, this brave notion appealed to me, and its contradiction only strengthened my conviction. For the rest of the journey, then, I plunged deep down into it, so deep my belly swelled with a thousand ideas regarding the Moon to which I could not yet give birth.

So earnestly did I entertain this burlesque that I almost accepted it myself, so persuasive was my reasoning. But, I don't know, call it miracle or happenstance, Providence or Fortune, vision, fiction, chimera or delusion, what you will; fact is, the opportunity presented itself for me to embark upon this Discourse you now read.

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A Journey to the Moon

Viaje a la Luna 1 White bed on a grey wall. Across the bedclothes a dance unfolds 13 & 22. First two, then more till they cover the bed like ants. 2 The bedclothes are torn off the bed by an invisible hand. 3 Big feet run fast in black and white lozenged socks. 4 A frightened head gaze fixed on a point dissolves into a wire head against a backdrop of water. 5 Letters help help help double exposure a vulva moving up and down. 6 A long corridor traversed by the machine a window down the end. 7 A view of Broadway by night. 8 Dissolve to previous scene. 9 A pair of legs swing quickly. 10 Legs dissolve into a mass of trembling hands. 11 Trembling hands double-exposure a weeping child. 12 The weeping child double-exposure the woman who beats him. 13 Fade to the long corridor camera moving backwards fast. 14 At the end wide shot of an eye double-exposure a fish dissolving into what follows. 15 Falling fast through a window letters double-exposed in blue help help . 16 Dissolve...

He understands well all manner of languages, and the virtue of all manner of herbs.

Capitulo xxxj. Which be friends and kin unto Reynard the Fox. The first child is named Byteluys who is much cherished and can make much sport and game wherefore is given him the fat trenchers and much other good meat which comes well to profit Fulrompe his brother and also my third child is a daughter and is named Hatenette she can well pick out lice and nits from men's heads these three be to each other true wherefore I love them well Dame Rukenawe called them forth and said welcome my dear children come forth and stand by Reynard your dear nephew then said she come forth all ye that be my kin and Reynard's and let us pray the King he will do to Reynard right of the land then came forth many a beast anon as the Squirrel the Stoat the Polecat the Marten the Bever with his wife Ordegale the Genet the Ostrole the Boussyng and the Ferret this twain fain eat a pullet as Reynard the Otter and Pantecroet his wife whom I had almost forgotten yet were they before with the Bever ene...

His Tongue did gaggle as if it were made of the Devil's Bollock Leather.

Chapter IV. How Robin the Cobbler, having got loose of the witches, became a new man, and of many notable exploits which he did, you shall pleasantly hear. Now, when Robin the Cobbler had broken the spells of witchcraft his eyesight his hearing his speech his senses and his knowledge was all restored unto him again yet he looked of a pitiful complexion just as a man may say like one of Pharaoh's lean kine his visage was pale and ghastly his eyes seemed as if they were sunk into his head his nose was like the nose of a scolding ale-wife long and sharp and his tongue did gaggle as if it were made of the Devil's bollock leather his belly and his back were so clung together he was scarce able to shit for bones Nor had he any kind of habit to put on that was worth the throwing to the dunghill only an old lousy smock and a pair of slip-shoes which one of the witches gave him out of here mere pitiful charity yet he knew himself to be far happier than he was before when he was ridden...

Paul Summers Young

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