Somnium (or, The Dream)

1) ["Somnium," Johannes Kepler] "In the year 1608, when quarrels were raging between the brothers, Emperor Rudolph and Archduke Matthias, people were comparing precedents from Bohemian history. Caught up by the general curiosity, I applied my mind to Bohemian legends and chanced upon the story of the heroine Libussa, famous for her magic art. It happened then on a certain night that after watching the stars and moon, I stretched out on my bed and fell sound asleep."

2) [Ibid.] "Brahe, greatly delighted with the letter I gave him, began to ask me many questions which I, unfamiliar with the language, did not understand except for a few words. He therefore imposed upon his students, whom he supported in great numbers, the task of talking with me frequently: so it came about, through this generosity of Brahe and a few weeks' practice, that I spoke Danish fairly well. I was no less ready to talk than they were to question and I told them many new things about my homeland in return for the marvels they related to me. Finally the captain of the ship that had brought me returned. But when he came to fetch me, he was sent away. And I was very happy."

3) [Ibid.] "Volva waxes and wanes no less than our moon, the cause being the same: the presence of the sun or its departure. Even the time is the same, if you look to nature; but they reckon in one way, we in another. They consider as a day and a night the time in which all the waxings and wanings of their Volva occur."

4) [Ibid.] "Those to whom breathing is more necessary introduce the hot water into the caves by means of a narrow canal, in order that, being taken into the innermost parts through a long course, the water may gradually become cool. They stay there for the greater part of the day, and use the water for drinking; and when evening approaches they go forth to seek food. In the case of plants, bark, in the case of animals, skin, or whatever may take its place, accounts for the major part of the corporeal mass, and it is spongy and porous; if anything is caught in the daylight, it becomes hard and burnt on top, and when evening approaches the outer covering comes off. Things growing from the soil, although on the mountain ridges there are few, are usually produced and destroyed on the same day, new growth springing up daily. A race of serpents predominates in general. It is wonderful how they expose themselves to the sun at midday as if for pleasure, but only just inside the mouths of caves, in order that there might be a safe and convenient retreat."

5) ["The First Men in the Moon," H. G. Wells] "'I suppose anyhow—on any planet, where there is an intelligent animal, it will carry its brain case upward, and have hands and walk erect...' Presently he broke away in another direction. 'We are some way in,' he said. "I mean—perhaps a couple of thousand feet or more.' 'Why?' 'It's cooler. And our voices are so much louder. That faded quality—it has altogether gone. And the feeling in one's ears and throat.' I had not noted that, but I did now. 'The air is denser. We must be some depth—a mile even we may be—inside the moon.' 'We never thought of a world inside the moon.'"

6) ["Journey to the Moon," Cyrano de Bergerac] "'Oho,' they said, taking me by the arm, 'so you want to play the clown. My Lord the Governor will know you all right!' They led me towards their troop, where I learned that I was indeed in France—in New France. Some little time later I was presented to the Viceroy, who asked me my country, my name, and my quality. I satisfied him by relating the happy outcome of my voyage and, whether he believed it or only pretended to do so, he had the goodness to arrange for me to be given a room in his house. My joy was great at meeting a man capable of lofty reasoning, who was not at all surprised when I told him that the earth must have revolved during the course of my levitation, since I had begun my ascent two leagues away from Paris and had come down almost perpendicularly in Canada."

7) [Ibid.] "After fortifying my courage with a bottle of a cordial essence, I returned to look for my machine. I did not find it, however, for some soldiers, who had been sent into the forest to cut wood to build a fire for the feast of St. John, had chanced upon it and brought it to the Fort, where several explanations of what it could be were advanced. When the device of the spring was discovered, some said a quantity of rockets should be attached to it, so that when their speed had lifted them high enough and the motor was agitating its great wings, no one could fail to take the machine for a fire dragon. Meanwhile I spent a long time searching for it, but at last I found it in the middle of the square in Quebec just as they were setting fire to it. My dismay at discovering my handiwork in such danger so excited me that I ran to seize the arm of the soldier who was setting light to it. I snatched the fuse from him and threw myself furiously into my machine to destroy the contrivance with which it had been surrounded, but I arrived too late, for I had hardly set my two feet inside it when I was borne up into the blue."

8) ["The True History," Lucian] "The storm went on for seventy-nine days, but on the eightieth the sun suddenly shone through and revealed an island not far off. It was hilly and covered with trees, and now that the worst of the storm was over, the roar of the waves breaking against the shore had died down to a soft murmur. So we landed and threw ourselves down, utterly exhausted, on the sand. After all we had been through, you can imagine how long we lay there; but eventually we got up, and leaving thirty men to guard the ship, I and the other twenty went off to explore the island. We started walking inland through the woods, and when we had gone about six hundred yards we came across a bronze tablet with a Greek inscription on it. The letters were almost worn away, but we just managed to make out the words: 'Hercules and Dionysus got this far.' We also spotted a couple of footprints on a rock nearby, one about a hundred feet long, and the other, I should say, about ninety-nine. Presumably Hercules has somewhat larger feet than Dionysus."

9) [Ibid.] "The infantry numbered approximately sixty million, and special steps had to be taken before they could be suitably deployed. There are, you must understand, large numbers of spiders on the Moon, each considerably larger than the average island in the Archipelago, and their services were requisitioned to construct a continuous cobweb between the Moon and Lucifer. As soon as the job had been done and the infantry had thus been placed on a firm footing, Nycterion, the third son of Eudianax, led them out on to the field of battle."

10) [Ibid.] "Well, that is what it was like on the Moon. If you do not believe me, go and see for yourself."