The Battle of the Books In Plain and Simple English (Translated)
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About this ebook
"The Battle of the Books" is considered one of the greatest political satires ever written. The essay is as hilarious today as it was hundreds of years ago...if you can understand it!
If you have struggled in the past reading the satire, then BookCaps can help you out.
We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.
BookCaps
We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.Visit www.bookcaps.com to see more of our books, or contact us with any questions.
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The Battle of the Books In Plain and Simple English (Translated) - BookCaps
About This Series
The Classic Retold
series started as a way of telling classics for the modern reader—being careful to preserve the themes and integrity of the original. Whether you want to understand Shakespeare a little more or are trying to get a better grasps of the Greek classics, there is a book waiting for you!
Modern Version
THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
Satire is a type of mirror in which onlookers generally see everybody's face apart from their own; that is the main reason it gets such a very warm welcome in the world, and why so few people are offended by it. But if the opposite happens, there is no great danger. I have learned from long experience never to worry about getting grief from people who have understood my meaning. Anger and fury, although they add power to the muscles, lessen the power of the mind, making it feeble and impotent.
There is a type of brain that will only allow a person to dip into it once. Let its owner use it with discretion, and be careful how he spends his little stock. Above all he should be wary of exposing it to the attacks of those better than him, because it will all turn into uselessness, and then he will have none left. Wit without knowledge is like cream, which rises to the top of the bottle, and the skilful hand can quickly whip it into froth; once that is skimmed off, what is underneath is good for nothing but pig food.
The Account
A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES’S LIBRARY.
Any person who looks carefully over history will notice that war springs from pride, and pride comes from wealth: the first of these statements is easy to agree to, but it's not so easy to agree to the second; pride is closely related to poverty and need, either on the father or mother's side, and sometimes on both. To tell you the truth, men very seldom come into conflict when everyone has enough; invasions usually take place going from North to South, i.e. the poor attack the wealthy. The most ancient and natural reasons for fighting are lust and greed; although we might say that they are brothers, or at least related to, pride, they certainly spring from need. If we use the language of political writers, we can see in the Republic of dogs, which in its original state seems to be a democracy, that everything is at its most peaceful when they have had a good meal. Civil War starts amongst them when one great bone is grabbed by one of the leading dogs, who either shares it with just a few others, which then makes an oligarchy, or keeps it to himself, which makes a tyranny. The same thing happens with them in the battles they have when any of their females are in heat. As the right to claim to the bitch belongs to all of them (in such a tricky matter it would be impossible to determine exactly who was in the right), jealousy and suspicion is so great that all the dogs in that street are reduced to a state of war, with all citizens fighting against each other, until someone with more courage, skill or luck than the rest takes and enjoys the prize. When that happens there is naturally a great deal of disturbance and jealousy and snarling at the happy dog. Again, if we look at any of those republics engaged in wars with other countries, either as aggressor or defender, we will find that the same motivations will applied to each of them. Poverty or need, of some sort (either real or imagined, which makes no difference to how they behave), has a great part to play, as well as pride, in driving the aggressor.
Now anyone who wants to take these ideas and apply them or adapt them to matters of learning will soon discover what started the disagreement between two great parties fighting at the moment, and will be able to come to their conclusions about the merits of either side. But it is not so easy to discover what started this war, or what is happening in it, because at the moment the hotheads of either side are so passionate, and they think so much of themselves, that they won't allow any talk of agreement. I heard from an old resident of the neighbourhood that the quarrel first began over a small piece of ground on one of the double summits of the hill Parnassus. It seems that the highest and largest of the summits had always been owned by certain tenants called the Ancients; the other was held by the Moderns. But the Moderns, not liking their current position, sent some ambassadors to the Ancients, complaining that they were most annoyed. They said that the height of the summit on which the Ancients sat was spoiling the view from their part, especially if they looked eastwards. Therefore, to avoid war, they offered the Ancients two alternatives; the Ancients could either move down to the lower summit, which the Moderns would kindly give them and move over into their place; alternatively the Ancients could give the Moderns permission to bring their shovels and pitchforks and cut down the summit of the Ancients as low as they thought proper. The Ancients answered that they were very surprised to receive such a message from a group whom they had so kindly allowed to live so near to them. They said that as for their home, they were the original inhabitants, and so to talk to them about removing them or surrender was to talk in a language they did not understand. They said that if the height of their summit cut of the view of the Moderns, they couldn't help it. They also asked them to think whether the harm it did (if there was any) wasn't largely compensated for by the shade and shelter it gave them. As for levelling off or digging out the summit, that was either stupidity or ignorance, because the whole of that hill was a complete rock, which would break their tools and their hearts without taking any damage. So they said they advised the Moderns that they should try to raise up their own side of the hill rather than dream of pulling down the side of the Ancients. If they wanted to do that they would not only give them permission, but also help.
The Moderns rejected this very indignantly, insisting on one of the two alternatives they had offered. So this argument broke out into a long war, continued on one side through determination, and the courage of the leaders and allies, and on the other by strength of numbers, as every defeat brought new recruits. Great streams of ink have been used up in this quarrel and both sides have become much more bitter. Now, you must understand that ink is the great missile used in all battles between learned men. Sent through a sort of machine called a quill, great numbers of them are thrown at the enemy by the brave men on each side, with equal skill and violence, as if they were two armies of porcupines fighting. This poisonous liquid was made by its inventor from two ingredients, gall and iron sulphate. Its bitterness and poison both matched and in some ways encouraged the genius of the combatants. Like the Greeks when they couldn't agree on who had won a battle, and so set up monuments on both sides, the loser being happy to spend the money in order to keep up appearances (a fine ancient custom, which pleasingly has recently been readopted in wars), so the learned, after a sharp and bloody battle, set up their monuments on both sides, no matter who actually lost. These monuments have the merits of their cause written on them, with a full and impartial account of the battle and how the side which set up the monument clearly triumphed. These monuments are known to the world by several names, such as disputes, arguments, rejoinders, brief considerations, answers, replies, remarks, reflections, objections, confutations. For a few days they are put up in all public places, either by themselves or their representatives, for passers-by to look at; then the most important and largest ones are taken away to be put in armouries which they call libraries, where they stay in an area specifically allocated to them, and from then on they