CE comte s’en ira tout simple: car ie laisse aux medecins d’en discourir. Ie vis auant hier vn enfant que deux hommes et vne nourrisse, qui se disoient estre le pere, l’oncle, et la tante, conduisoient, pour tirer quelque soul de le montrer, à cause de son estrangeté. Il estoit en tout le reste d’vne forme commune, et se soustenoit sur ses pieds, marchoit et gasouilloit, enuiron comme les autres de mesme aage: il n’auoit encore voulu prendre autre nourriture, que du tetin de sa nourrisse: et ce qu’on essaya en ma presence de luy mettre en la bouche, il le maschoit vn peu, et le rendoit sans aualler: ses cris sembloient bien auoir quelque chose de particulier: il estoit aagé de quatorze mois iustement.
This story will go out plain, for I leave it to the physicians to discuss it. The day before yesterday I saw a child being led about by two men and a nurse, who said they were his father, uncle and aunt, to make a little money by showing him because of his strangeness. In all the rest he was of a common shape: he stood on his feet, walked and babbled more or less like other children of the same age. He had not yet been willing to take any nourishment except from his nurse’s breast; what they tried to put in his mouth in my presence he chewed a little and gave back without swallowing. His cries did seem to have something peculiar about them. He was exactly fourteen months old.
Au dessoubs de ses tetins, il estoit pris et collé à vn autre enfant, sans teste, et qui auoit le conduit du dos estouppé, le reste entier: car il auoit bien l’vn bras plus court, mais il luy auoit esté rompu par accident, à leur naissance; ils estoyent ioints face à face, et comme si vn plus petit enfant en vouloit accoler vn plus grandelet. La ioincture et l’espace par où ils se tenoient n’estoit que de quatre doigts, ou enuiron, en maniere, que si vous retroussiez cet enfant imparfaict, vous voyiez au dessoubs le nombril de l’autre: ainsi la cousture se faisoit entre les tetins et son nombril.
Below his nipples he was attached and stuck to another child, without a head, whose back passage was stopped up, the rest being whole; for though one of its arms was shorter, it had been broken by accident at their birth. They were joined face to face, as if a smaller child were trying to hug a slightly bigger one. The joint and the space by which they held together was only four fingers wide or thereabouts, so that if you lifted up this imperfect child you could see the other’s navel beneath; thus the seam ran between his nipples and his navel.
Le nombril de l’imparfaict ne se pouuoit voir, mais ouy bien tout le reste de son ventre. Voyla comme ce qui n’estoit pas attaché, comme bras, fessier, cuisses et iambes, de cet imparfaict, demouroient pendants et branslans sur l’autre, et luy pouuoit aller sa longueur iusques à my iambe. La nourrice nous adioustoit, qu’il vrinoit par tous les deux endroicts: aussi estoient les membres de cet autre nourris, et viuans, et en mesme poinct que les siens, sauf qu’ils estoient plus petits et menus. Ce double corps, et ces membres diuers, se rapportans à vne seule teste, pourroient bien fournir de fauorable prognostique au Roy, de maintenir soubs l’vnion de ses loix, ces parts et pieces diuerses de nostre Estat.
The navel of the imperfect one could not be seen, but all the rest of his belly could. So the parts of this imperfect one that were not attached, such as arms, buttocks, thighs and legs, hung dangling on the other, and might reach down to his mid-leg. The nurse added that he urinated through both places. The limbs of the other were also nourished and alive, and in the same condition as his own, except that they were smaller and thinner. This double body and these various limbs, connected to a single head, might well provide a favorable omen for the King, that he will maintain these various parts and pieces of our State under the union of his laws.
Mais de peur que l’euenement ne le desmente, il vaut mieux le laisser passer deuant: car il n’est que de deuiner en choses faictes, Vt quum facta sunt, tum ad coniecturam aliqua interpretatione reuocentur: comme on dit d’Epimenides qu’il deuinoit à reculons.
But for fear that the outcome may give it the lie, it is better to let the event go first; for there is nothing like divining things already done, so that, once they have happened, they may then be brought back to the prophecy by some interpretation—as they say of Epimenides that he prophesied backward.
Ie vien de voir vn pastre en Medoc, de trente ans ou enuiron, qui n’a aucune montre des parties genitales: il a trois trous par où il rend son eau incessamment, il est barbu, a desir, et recherche l’attouchement des femmes.
I have just seen a shepherd in Médoc, about thirty years old, who has no sign of genital parts. He has three holes through which he passes water continually. He is bearded, has desire, and seeks the touch of women.
What we call monsters
Nothing is against nature; we call monstrous only what is contrary to our custom.
Ce que nous appellons monstres, ne le sont pas à Dieu, qui voit en l’immensité de son ouurage, l’infinité des formes, qu’il y a comprinses. Et est à croire, que cette figure qui nous estonne, se rapporte et tient, à quelque autre figure de mesme genre, incognu à l’homme. De sa toute sagesse, il ne part rien que bon, et commun, et reglé: mais nous n’en voyons pas l’assortiment et la relation. Quod crebrò videt, non miratur, etiam si, cur fiat nescit. Quod antè non vidit, id, si euenerit, ostentum esse censet. Nous appellons contre Nature, ce qui aduient contre la coustume. Rien n’est que selon elle, quel qu’il soit.
What we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of his work the infinity of forms he has included in it. And it is to be believed that this figure that astonishes us relates and belongs to some other figure of the same kind, unknown to man. From his all-wisdom nothing proceeds but what is good, common and regular; but we do not see its arrangement and relation. What he sees often he does not wonder at, even if he does not know why it happens. What he has not seen before, if it happens, he thinks a portent. We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom. Nothing whatever exists that is not in accordance with nature.
Que cette raison vniuerselle et naturelle, chasse de nous l’erreur et l’estonnement que la nouuelleté nous apporte.
Let this universal and natural reason drive out of us the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.