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Introduction: Absent Bodies
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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I n t r o d u c t i o n Absent Bodies Giovanni Battista Gelli’s Circe of 1549 recounts Ulysses’ efforts to convince a variety of beasts, transformed from men by Circe, that they should return to their human form and leave her island with him. Ulysses begins with the humblest of creatures, the oyster and the mole (also the simplest and humblest of humans, a fisherman and a ploughman respectively), but upon being soundly rejected, decides to move on to other creatures more likely to understand his appeal to reason: “Thou shalt find some [men] of such knowledge and wit,” he remarks to Circe, “that they are almost lyke unto the goddes, and some others of so grosse wytte, and small knowledge, that they seme almost bestes.” Assuming he has met only men who were dull witted in their human forms, or “whiles they were men, never knew themselves, nor never knewe their own nature, but they attended onely to the bodye,”1 Ulysses keeps trying new tacks with new interlocutors. Moving through his own version of a great chain of being to a snake, a hare, a lion, a horse, a goat, a hind, a dog, a calf, and an elephant, Ulysses proposes different arguments in support of human superiority. But in each debate, the famous orator’s persuasion returns again and again to the idea that reason is the basis of human excellence; so he tells the lion that animals cannot claim true virtues because “amongst beastes there is no fortitude at all, but onle amonge menne,” since fortitude “is a meane, determined with reasonne, betwene boldenes and feare . . . because you have not the discourse of reason, whereby you might eyther knowe the good or the honest, and by occasion thereof, onely you put your selves in daungers; but you do it eyther for profyte or for pleasure, or to revenge some injurie. And this is not fortitude” (sig. l4r). Again, he tells the horse, “temperance is an elective habit, made with a right discourse of reason; howe can you then have this virtue in you?” (sig. n4r). However, each and every animal rejects Ulysses’ 2 Introduction proposed gift of humanity, arguing that its beastly condition is superior. Not until he debates with the elephant, once a human philosopher, does he find someone who shares his philosophical language, and whom he is able to convince that humans are the most noble, the most virtuous creatures because they are rational, and are not limited by the sensory memory, experience, and instinct that is all animals possess. Transformed, the elephant, now restored to human identity as Aglafemos, cries out, “Oh what a marveylous thing it is to be a man!” (sig. t2r). Of course, having found his convert, Ulysses must then warn him that there are some things that even human beings cannot know, such as the first cause of life, because they are hampered by their bodies and the shortness of their lives. Although he has categorically rejected the claims of all his targets to a better life in animal form by privileging reason and discounting the body, it turns out that the body is a limiting factor even for humans. Indeed, this conclusion of the Circe sends us back to reevaluate the positions of even the very simplest of the animals, each of whom makes a strong case that human bodies are, in fact, far inferior to beastly ones. The oyster, for instance, argues that unlike humans animals do not have to labor to create their food and clothing, and goes on: “I have reason, consideringe besides this that nature hath set so litle store by you, for besides the bringing forth of you naked, she also hath not made you any hose or habitation of your own, wher[e] you mought defend you from th’injuries of the wether, as she has made to us, which is a plaine toke that you are as rebelles and banished of this world, having no place here of your owne” (sig. B4r). Likewise, the mole answers the charge that his condition is defined by lack, particularly of sight, by pointing out that humans come into the world weeping because they are embarking on a life of misery and suffering. “And why for syns it [seeing] is not necessarye to my nature, it is sufficient to me, to be perfit in myne owne kynde,” concludes the mole, and reiterates, “for that I am perfecte in thys my...