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The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the Moon
The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the Moon
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.It is also searchable.
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Francis Godwin, was the author of this most curious story. It is called "The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales", and relates the journey of one Domingo Gonzalez to that planet, the Moon. This was written by Godwin, and believed to be written while he was a student at Oxford. By some internal proofs, it must have been later than 1599, and before the death of Elizabeth in 1603. But it was not published till 1638.
It was translated into French, and became the model of Cyrano de Bergerac, and traces of it seem to appear in parts of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".
Godwin himself had no prototype, as far as we know, but Lucian. The fiction is rather ingenious and amusing throughout; but the most remarkable part is the happy conjectures, if we must say no more, of his philosophy. Not only does the writer declare positively for the Copernican system, which was uncommon at that time, but he has surprisingly understood the principle of gravitation; it being distinctly supposed that the earth's attraction diminishes with the distance. Nor is the following passage less curious: "I must let you understand that the globe of the moon is not altogether destitute of an attractive power; but it is far weaker than that of the earth: as if a man do but spring upwards with all his force, as dancers do when they show their activity by capering, he shall be able to mount fifty or sixty feet high, and then he is quite beyond all attraction of the moon."
By this device, Gonzalez returns from his sojourn in the latter, though it required a more complex one to bring him there. " The moon," he observes, " is covered with a sea, except the parts which seem somewhat darker to us, and are dry land." A contrary hypothesis came afterwards to prevail; but we must not expect every thing from our ingenious young student.
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An excerpt from the title page:
"An account of the island of St. Hellena; the place where he resided some years in, and where he planned this wonderful voyage; his entering on board one of the homeward-bound East-India ships for Spain; their running on the rocks near the Pike of Teneriff, to avoid an English squadron of ships, that were in pursuit of the Spanish fleet; gonsales had just time to fix his machine, which carried him in safety to the Pike of Teneriff, having rested his gansas on the mountain, whence was pursued by the savages; when giving the signal to his birds, they arose in the air with him for their journey to the moon: the wonderful apparitions and devils he met with in his progress; their temptations to him, which he avoided, and their supplying him with choice provisions; his leaving this hellish crew, and proceeding on his voyage to the moon; his safe arrival there; the manners, customs, and language of the emperors, kings, princes and people: his short stay there, to the great grief of the Lunars; the inestimable presents in jewels the author received at his departure; his repairing to our earthly globe again, and was set down in china by his birds; his being taken for a magician by the country people, and preserved from their fury by a Chinese mandarin; his going aboard an india ship bound to Europe; his safe arrival in his own country, where he made his discoveries to the king of Spain, who held several cabinet councils to deliberate on a proper use to be made of these discoveries."
***
Francis Godwin, was the author of this most curious story. It is called "The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales", and relates the journey of one Domingo Gonzalez to that planet, the Moon. This was written by Godwin, and believed to be written while he was a student at Oxford. By some internal proofs, it must have been later than 1599, and before the death of Elizabeth in 1603. But it was not published till 1638.
It was translated into French, and became the model of Cyrano de Bergerac, and traces of it seem to appear in parts of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".
Godwin himself had no prototype, as far as we know, but Lucian. The fiction is rather ingenious and amusing throughout; but the most remarkable part is the happy conjectures, if we must say no more, of his philosophy. Not only does the writer declare positively for the Copernican system, which was uncommon at that time, but he has surprisingly understood the principle of gravitation; it being distinctly supposed that the earth's attraction diminishes with the distance. Nor is the following passage less curious: "I must let you understand that the globe of the moon is not altogether destitute of an attractive power; but it is far weaker than that of the earth: as if a man do but spring upwards with all his force, as dancers do when they show their activity by capering, he shall be able to mount fifty or sixty feet high, and then he is quite beyond all attraction of the moon."
By this device, Gonzalez returns from his sojourn in the latter, though it required a more complex one to bring him there. " The moon," he observes, " is covered with a sea, except the parts which seem somewhat darker to us, and are dry land." A contrary hypothesis came afterwards to prevail; but we must not expect every thing from our ingenious young student.
****
An excerpt from the title page:
"An account of the island of St. Hellena; the place where he resided some years in, and where he planned this wonderful voyage; his entering on board one of the homeward-bound East-India ships for Spain; their running on the rocks near the Pike of Teneriff, to avoid an English squadron of ships, that were in pursuit of the Spanish fleet; gonsales had just time to fix his machine, which carried him in safety to the Pike of Teneriff, having rested his gansas on the mountain, whence was pursued by the savages; when giving the signal to his birds, they arose in the air with him for their journey to the moon: the wonderful apparitions and devils he met with in his progress; their temptations to him, which he avoided, and their supplying him with choice provisions; his leaving this hellish crew, and proceeding on his voyage to the moon; his safe arrival there; the manners, customs, and language of the emperors, kings, princes and people: his short stay there, to the great grief of the Lunars; the inestimable presents in jewels the author received at his departure; his repairing to our earthly globe again, and was set down in china by his birds; his being taken for a magician by the country people, and preserved from their fury by a Chinese mandarin; his going aboard an india ship bound to Europe; his safe arrival in his own country, where he made his discoveries to the king of Spain, who held several cabinet councils to deliberate on a proper use to be made of these discoveries."
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