Joust on Vellum

One of the greatest of all the inventions of man perches and pinches on my nose.  As I sit in the scriptorium, pen in hand, parchment in front of me, I can read the book I copy and see the letters that I form.  The lighting here is excellent, the windows large; it is a sunny day.

I remove my spectacles, rub the bridge of my nose.  I rise and walk to the central table, familiar through years of service.  There, I set the spectacles down.  When I have stretched the kinks from my back, I reach to pick them up again.  It is then that I see.

There is a small knot in the wood just by the curl in the grain.  I know it well.  Yet, under the lens of my spectacles, the knot is surely slightly (oh, but only slightly) larger than it should be.

It must be some mistake.  I lift the spectacles; and the knot is its normal size.  Still, I am doubtful.  I measure it with my thumb.  Then I check it through the lens.  (Yes, to my shame, even putting my thumb on the glass of the spectacles.)  I rub the lens against my habit to remove the smear.

Then I set the lens over my thumb.

I jerk back.  (Oh, relief!  Once out from under the glass, my thumb is mercifully normal again.)

As Brother Anselm says, my sight is very bad.  I peer close; I repeat my actions; I see the Lord’s work.  (We are in a monastery; I have been copying holy text.  This must be the Lord’s work.)

Fascinating.

As I draw the pen with the greatest care over the silverpoint curve of the initial, my mind wanders.  Is the curve I see the same as the curve I draw?  I wear my spectacles, of course:  does the initial appear to change size, as the knot in the wood did?

I take off the spectacles.  If it were bigger through the lens, it is now normal-sized again.  But I wonder … what if some time this should not be so?  What if, when I tried the test with my finger, that poor benighted digit had remained enlarged forever?  Now, surely that would be the Devil’s work!

Still, spectacles themselves are as strange as magic.  Suppose, whether through Divine Inspiration or Diabolical Temptation, some clever Italian were to invent lenses that had that power, not just to make it possible for an old monk to read fine script, but for any wearer to enlarge permanently any object upon which he chose to lay his eyes?

What it would be to see a buttercup writ large!  If the lens were truly enormous, the flower might be the size of my hand.  The size of a wooden platter.  Even the size of a coracle, or the Ark itself.  One might set foot upon such a great golden cup, walk across the petals, and pluck grains of pollen the size of apples.

Ah, but what if there were a bee upon the flower?  What then?  One could pat its brown and furry flanks, be fanned by its gossamer wings.  But—its sting!  A sting the length of a strong knight’s sword!  If some man had spectacles such as those and used them to create such a monster, I would run to the Abbot.  He would have to send to Sir Ranulph; and he don armour to protect us.

Oh, but … a wasp or bee keeps its sting behind.  No true knight would attack an enemy from the rear.  Ah, dear Lord, what a conundrum.

Now, if there were a snail upon the plant….

Oh, damn, I’ll have to scrape that off.  (Sorry, Lord.  I’ll mention the oath when I make confession, I promise.)

Vermilion dotted across orpiment … ah, this is tedium.  Yet it must be done with care, for I do not want to have to scrape off a splotch of this.  Not when I have laid the yellow ground so evenly.  It is as bright and pure as … as that giant buttercup would be.

The snail on the buttercup.  Now, there would be a strange foe.  So slow, yet impregnable in its shell, twin lances on its head.

Sir Ranulph is taken aback at the sight.  He has come at the Abbot’s plea, but had to return for his armour.  (No, he would not believe the tale, even from us.)  He returns, mounted on Gaspar, sword at his side and lance in hand, to find that the snail has descended from the giant buttercup, leaving behind it a monstrous trail of slime.  Not that that daunts a knight, of course.  A knight attacks boldly.

Sir Reynold lowers his helm.  He kicks Gaspar into a trot, facing him towards the foe, and then spurs him to full gallop.  The lance—

Would the lance pierce the shell?  I have a disturbing suspicion that, if Sir Ranulph took that target, his weapon would shatter.  Blood on the ground, like vermilion on orpiment.

No….

Sir Ranulph looks long and hard at his unnatural foe.  Its armour is shaped unlike his own, but is thick and strong.  He lowers his helm.  He kicks Gaspar into a trot, facing him towards the snail, and then spurs him to full gallop.  The snail—being, like all of its kind, slow as a snail (indeed!)—cannot shift itself nimbly as a war steed is trained to do.  The snail relies on its armour to shield its corpus, and turns only its neck.  Long, slimy, and mottled, the neck rises to a small and evil head crowned with a double lance.  It parries with the near horn, jabs with the other.  But Sir Ranulph, experienced in the lists, swerves to the side and gallops past.

In the lists, of course, he would pull up; so would his opponent; and they would turn to run another course.  The snail cannot turn—well, not without taking a candlemark or more, given its bulk—and, I dare say, cannot twist its long neck well enough to see behind itself.

Would Sir Ranulph turn Gaspar on his haunches and gallop back to thrust from behind?  Never!  And if he were so unchivalrous, the horse would slip on the snail’s slimy trail.  No, Sir Ranulph is not a fool, either!  He would circle for another round.

It would be a fine sight.

With silverpoint I shall limn thee, little snail.  I pluck you from the garden.  You will eat no cabbage today.  With azure I shall paint your shell; your neck with gamboge.  Gilt shall be your horns.  Your foe shall be the finest knight that I can paint, with spurs and shield and sword.

You will joust upon vellum.

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