Chapter 18: The Basilisk
Original French
Le basilic.
Arrivé dans une belle prairie, il y vit plusieurs femmes qui cherchaient quelque chose avec beaucoup d'application. Il prit la liberté de s'approcher de l'une d'elles, et de lui demander s'il pouvait avoir l'honneur de les aider dans leurs recherches. Gardez-vous-en bien, répondit la Syrienne; ce que nous cherchons ne peut être touché que par des femmes. Voilà qui est bien étrange, dit Zadig; oserai-je vous prier de m'apprendre ce que c'est qu'il n'est permis qu'aux femmes de toucher? C'est un basilic, dit-elle. Un basilic, madame! et pour quelle raison, s'il vous plaît, cherchez-vous un basilic? C'est pour notre seigneur et maître Ogul, dont vous voyez le château sur le bord de cette rivière, au bout de la prairie. Nous sommes ses très humbles esclaves; le seigneur Ogul est malade; son médecin lui a ordonné de manger un basilic cuit dans l'eau rose; et comme c'est un animal fort rare, et qui ne se laisse jamais prendre que par des femmes, le seigneur Ogul a promis de choisir pour sa femme bien-aimée celle de nous qui lui apporterait un basilic: laissez-moi chercher, s'il vous plaît: car vous voyez ce qu'il m'en coûterait si j'étais prévenue par mes compagnes.
Zadig laissa cette Syrienne et les autres chercher leur basilic, et continua de marcher dans la prairie. Quand il fut au bord d'un petit ruisseau, il y trouva une autre dame couchée sur le gazon, et qui ne cherchait rien. Sa taille paraissait majestueuse, mais son visage était couvert d'un voile. Elle était penchée vers le ruisseau; de profonds soupirs sortaient de sa bouche. Elle tenait en main une petite baguette, avec laquelle elle traçait des caractères sur un sable fin qui se trouvait entre le gazon et le ruisseau. Zadig eut la curiosité de voir ce que cette femme écrivait; il s'approcha, il vit la lettre Z, puis un A; il fut étonné; puis parut un D; il tressaillit. Jamais surprise ne fut égale à la sienne, quand il vit les deux dernières lettres de son nom. Il demeura quelque temps immobile: enfin rompant le silence d'une voix entrecoupée: O généreuse dame! pardonnez à un étranger, à un infortuné, d'oser vous demander par quelle aventure étonnante je trouve ici le nom de ZADIG tracé de votre main divine? A cette voix, à ces paroles, la dame releva son voile d'une main tremblante, regarda Zadig, jeta un cri d'attendrissement, de surprise, et de joie, et succombant sous tous les mouvements divers qui assaillaient à-la-fois son âme, elle tomba évanouie entre ses bras. C'était Astarté elle-même, c'était la reine de Babylone, c'était celle que Zadig adorait, et qu'il se reprochait d'adorer; c'était celle dont il avait tant pleuré et tant craint la destinée. Il fut un moment privé de l'usage de ses sens; et quand il eut attaché ses regards sur les yeux d'Astarté, qui se rouvraient avec une langueur mêlée de confusion et de tendresse: O puissances immortelles! s'écria-t-il, qui présidez aux destins des faibles humains, me rendez-vous Astarté? En quel temps, en quels lieux, en quel état la revois-je? Il se jeta à genoux devant Astarté, et il attacha son front à la poussière de ses pieds. La reine de Babylone le relève, et le fait asseoir auprès d'elle sur le bord de ce ruisseau; elle essuyait à plusieurs reprises ses yeux dont les larmes recommençaient toujours à couler. Elle reprenait vingt fois des discours que ses gémissements interrompaient; elle l'interrogeait sur le hasard qui les rassemblait, et prévenait soudain ses réponses par d'autres questions. Elle entamait le récit de ses malheurs, et voulait savoir ceux de Zadig. Enfin tous deux ayant un peu apaisé le tumulte de leurs âmes, Zadig lui conta en peu de mots par quelle aventure il se trouvait dans cette prairie. Mais, ô malheureuse et respectable reine! comment vous retrouvé-je en ce lieu écarté, vêtue en esclave, et accompagnée d'autres femmes esclaves qui cherchent un basilic pour le faire cuire dans de l'eau rose par ordonnance du médecin?
Pendant qu'elles cherchent leur basilic, dit la belle Astarté, je vais vous apprendre tout ce que j'ai souffert, et tout ce que je pardonne au ciel depuis que je vous revois. Vous savez que le roi mon mari trouva mauvais que vous fussiez le plus aimable de tous les hommes; et ce fut pour cette raison qu'il prit une nuit la résolution de vous faire étrangler et de m'empoisonner. Vous savez comme le ciel permit que mon petit muet m'avertît de l'ordre de sa sublime majesté. A peine le fidèle Cador vous eut-il forcé de m'obéir et de partir, qu'il osa entrer chez moi au milieu de la nuit par une issue secrète. Il m'enleva, et me conduisit dans le temple d'Orosmade, où le mage, son frère, m'enferma dans une statue colossale dont la base touche aux fondements du temple, et dont la tête atteint la voûte. Je fus là comme ensevelie, mais servie par le mage, et ne manquant d'aucune chose nécessaire. Cependant au point du jour l'apothicaire de sa majesté entra dans ma chambre avec une potion mêlée de jusquiame, d'opium, de ciguë, d'ellébore noir, et d'aconit; et un autre officier alla chez vous avec un lacet de soie bleue. On ne trouva personne. Cador, pour mieux tromper le roi, feignit de venir nous accuser tous deux. Il dit que vous aviez pris la route des Indes, et moi celle de Memphis: on envoya des satellites après vous et après moi.
Les courriers qui me cherchaient ne me connaissaient pas. Je n'avais presque jamais montré mon visage qu'à vous seul, en présence et par ordre de mon époux. Ils coururent à ma poursuite, sur le portrait qu'on leur fesait de ma personne: une femme de la même taille que moi, et qui peut-être avait plus de charmes, s'offrit à leurs regards sur les frontières de l'Egypte. Elle était éplorée, errante; ils ne doutèrent pas que cette femme ne fût la reine de Babylone; ils la menèrent à Moabdar. Leur méprise fit entrer d'abord le roi dans une violente colère; mais bientôt ayant considéré de plus près cette femme, il la trouva très belle, et fut consolé. On l'appelait Missouf. On m'a dit depuis que ce nom signifie en langue égyptienne la belle capricieuse. Elle l'était en effet; mais elle avait autant d'art que de caprice. Elle plut à Moabdar. Elle le subjugua au point de se faire déclarer sa femme. Alors son caractère se développa tout entier: elle se livra sans crainte à toutes les folies de son imagination. Elle voulut obliger le chef des mages, qui était vieux et goutteux, de danser devant elle; et sur le refus du mage, elle le persécuta violemment. Elle ordonna à son grand-écuyer de lui faire une tourte de confitures. Le grand-écuyer eut beau lui représenter qu'il n'était point pâtissier, il fallut qu'il fît la tourte; et on le chassa, parcequ'elle était trop brûlée. Elle donna la charge de grand-écuyer à son nain, et la place de chancelier à un page. C'est ainsi qu'elle gouverna Babylone. Tout le monde me regrettait. Le roi, qui avait été assez honnête homme jusqu'au moment où il avait voulu m'empoisonner et vous faire étrangler, semblait avoir noyé ses vertus dans l'amour prodigieux qu'il avait pour la belle capricieuse. Il vint au temple le grand jour du feu sacré. Je le vis implorer les dieux pour Missouf aux pieds de la statue où j'étais renfermée. J'élevai la voix; je lui criai: «Les dieux refusent les voeux d'un roi devenu tyran, qui a voulu faire mourir une femme raisonnable pour épouser une extravagante.» Moabdar fut confondu de ces paroles au point que sa tête se troubla. L'oracle que j'avais rendu, et la tyrannie de Missouf, suffisaient pour lui faire perdre le jugement. Il devint fou en peu de jours.
Sa folie, qui parut un châtiment du ciel, fut le signal de la révolte. On se souleva, on courut aux armes. Babylone, si long-temps plongée dans une mollesse oisive, devint le théâtre d'une guerre civile affreuse. On me tira du creux de ma statue, et on me mit à la tête d'un parti. Cador courut à Memphis, pour vous ramener à Babylone. Le prince d'Hyrcanie, apprenant ces funestes nouvelles, revint avec son armée faire un troisième parti dans la Chaldée. Il attaqua le roi, qui courut au-devant de lui avec son extravagante Egyptienne. Moabdar mourut percé de coups. Missouf tomba aux mains du vainqueur. Mon malheur voulut que je fusse prise moi-même par un parti hyrcanien, et qu'on me menât devant le prince précisément dans le temps qu'on lui amenait Missouf. Vous serez flatté, sans doute, en apprenant que le prince me trouva plus belle que l'Égyptienne; mais vous serez fâché d'apprendre qu'il me destina à son sérail. Il me dit fort résolument que, dès qu'il aurait fini une expédition militaire qu'il allait exécuter, il viendrait à moi. Jugez de ma douleur. Mes liens avec Moabdar étaient rompus, je pouvais être à Zadig; et je tombais dans les chaînes de ce barbare! Je lui répondis avec toute la fierté que me donnaient mon rang et mes sentiments. J'avais toujours entendu dire que le ciel attachait aux personnes de ma sorte un caractère de grandeur qui d'un mot et d'un coup d'oeil fesait rentrer dans l'abaissement du plus profond respect les téméraires qui osaient s'en écarter. Je parlai en reine, mais je fus traitée en demoiselle suivante. L'Hyrcanien, sans daigner seulement m'adresser la parole, dit à son eunuque noir que j'étais une impertinente, mais qu'il me trouvait jolie. Il lui ordonna d'avoir soin de moi et de me mettre au régime des favorites, afin de me rafraîchir le teint, et de me rendre plus digne de ses faveurs, pour le jour où il aurait la commodité de m'en honorer. Je lui dis que je me tuerais: il répliqua, en riant, qu'on ne se tuait point, qu'il était fait à ces façons-là, et me quitta comme un homme qui vient de mettre un perroquet dans sa ménagerie. Quel état pour la première reine de l'univers, et, je dirai plus, pour un coeur qui était à Zadig!
A ces paroles il se jeta à ses genoux, et les baigna de larmes. Astarté le releva tendrement, et elle continua ainsi: Je me voyais au pouvoir d'un barbare, et rivale d'une folle avec qui j'étais renfermée. Elle me raconta son aventure d'Egypte. Je jugeai par les traits dont elle vous peignait, par le temps, par le dromadaire sur lequel vous étiez monté, par toutes les circonstances, que c'était Zadig qui avait combattu pour elle. Je ne doutai pas que vous ne fussiez à Memphis; je pris la résolution de m'y retirer. Belle Missouf, lui dis-je, vous êtes beaucoup plus plaisante que moi, vous divertirez bien mieux que moi le prince d'Hyrcanie. Facilitez-moi les moyens de me sauver; vous régnerez seule; vous me rendrez heureuse, en vous débarrassant d'une rivale. Missouf concerta avec moi les moyens de ma fuite. Je partis donc secrètement avec une esclave égyptienne.
J'étais déjà près de l'Arabie, lorsqu'un fameux voleur, nommé Arbogad, m'enleva, et me vendit à des marchands qui m'ont amenée dans ce château, où demeure le seigneur Ogul. Il m'a achetée sans savoir qui j'étais. C'est un homme voluptueux qui ne cherche qu'à faire grande chère, et qui croit que Dieu l'a mis au monde pour tenir table. Il est d'un embonpoint excessif, qui est toujours prêt à le suffoquer. Son médecin, qui n'a que peu de crédit auprès de lui quand il digère bien, le gouverne despotiquement quand il a trop mangé. Il lui a persuadé qu'il le guérirait avec un basilic cuit dans de l'eau rose. Le seigneur Ogul a promis sa main à celle de ses esclaves qui lui apporterait un basilic. Vous voyez que je les laisse s'empresser à mériter cet honneur, et je n'ai jamais eu moins d'envie de trouver ce basilic que depuis que le ciel a permis que je vous revisse.
Alors Astarté et Zadig se dirent tout ce que des sentiments long-temps retenus, tout ce que leurs malheurs et leurs amours pouvaient inspirer aux coeurs les plus nobles et les plus passionnés; et les génies qui président à l'amour portèrent leurs paroles jusqu'à la sphère de Vénus.
Les femmes rentrèrent chez Ogul sans avoir rien trouvé. Zadig se fit présenter à lui, et lui parla en ces termes: Que la santé immortelle descende du ciel pour avoir soin de tous vos jours! Je suis médecin, j'ai accouru vers vous sur le bruit de votre maladie, et je vous ai apporté un basilic cuit dans de l'eau rose. Ce n'est pas que je prétende vous épouser: je ne vous demande que la liberté d'une jeune esclave de Babylone que vous avez depuis quelques jours; et je consens de rester en esclavage à sa place, si je n'ai pas le bonheur de guérir le magnifique seigneur Ogul.
La proposition fut acceptée. Astarté partit pour Babylone avec le domestique de Zadig, en lui promettant de lui envoyer incessamment un courrier, pour l'instruire de tout ce qui se serait passé. Leurs adieux furent aussi tendres que l'avait été leur reconnaissance. Le moment où l'on se retrouve, et celui où l'on se sépare, sont les deux plus grandes époques de la vie, comme dit le grand livre du Zend. Zadig aimait la reine autant qu'il le jurait, et la reine aimait Zadig plus qu'elle ne le lui disait.
Cependant Zadig parla ainsi à Ogul: Seigneur, on ne mange point mon basilic, toute sa vertu doit entrer chez vous par les pores. Je l'ai mis dans une petite outre bien enflée et couverte d'une peau fine: il faut que vous poussiez cette outre de toute votre force, et que je vous la renvoie à plusieurs reprises; et en peu de jours de régime vous verrez ce que peut mon art. Ogul dès le premier jour fut tout essoufflé, et crut qu'il mourrait de fatigue. Le second il fut moins fatigué, et dormit mieux. En huit jours il recouvra toute la force, la santé, la légèreté, et la gaieté de ses plus brillantes années. Vous avez joué au ballon, et vous avez été sobre, lui dit Zadig: apprenez qu'il n'y a point de basilic dans la nature, qu'on se porte toujours bien avec de la sobriété et de l'exercice, et que l'art de faire subsister ensemble l'intempérance et la santé est un art aussi chimérique que la pierre philosophale, l'astrologie judiciaire, et la théologie des mages.
Le premier médecin d'Ogul, sentant combien cet homme était dangereux pour la médecine, s'unit avec l'apothicaire du corps pour envoyer Zadig chercher des basilics dans l'autre monde. Ainsi, après avoir été toujours puni pour avoir bien fait, il était près de périr pour avoir guéri un seigneur gourmand. On l'invita à un excellent dîner. Il devait être empoisonné au second service; mais il reçut un courrier de la belle Astarté au premier. Il quitta la table, et partit. Quand on est aimé d'une belle femme, dit le grand Zoroastre, on se tire toujours d'affaire dans ce monde.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from Voltaire’s French in Beuchot’s 1829 edition: Approbation, dedicatory epistle and all twenty-one chapters, including The Dance and Blue Eyes. Voltaire’s notes are retained; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
The Basilisk.
Coming into a beautiful meadow, he saw several women searching intently for something. He took the liberty of approaching one of them and asking whether he might have the honor of helping with their search. “Be sure you do nothing of the kind,” the Syrian woman replied. “What we are looking for may be touched only by women.” “That is very strange,” said Zadig. “May I venture to ask what this thing is that only women are allowed to touch?” “A basilisk,” she said. “A basilisk, madam! And why, if you please, are you looking for a basilisk?” “It is for our lord and master Ogul, whose castle you can see beside the river at the end of the meadow. We are his most humble slaves. Lord Ogul is ill; his physician has prescribed a basilisk cooked in rosewater. And since it is a very rare animal, and never lets anyone but women catch it, Lord Ogul has promised to choose as his beloved wife whichever of us brings him a basilisk. Please let me search, for you can see what it would cost me if my companions got there first.”
Zadig left the Syrian woman and the others to look for their basilisk, and walked on through the meadow. When he reached the bank of a little stream, he found another woman lying on the grass, looking for nothing. Her figure seemed majestic, but a veil covered her face. She was leaning toward the stream; deep sighs escaped her lips. In her hand she held a little stick, with which she was tracing letters in the fine sand between the grass and the stream. Curious to see what she was writing, Zadig came closer. He saw the letter Z, then an A; he was astonished. Then a D appeared; he trembled. No surprise ever equaled his when he saw the last two letters of his name. For a while he stood motionless. At last he broke the silence in a faltering voice: “Oh, generous lady! Forgive a stranger, an unfortunate man, for daring to ask by what astonishing chance I find the name ZADIG written here by your divine hand.” At that voice, at those words, the lady lifted her veil with a trembling hand, looked at Zadig, gave a cry of tenderness, surprise, and joy, and, overcome by all the different feelings assailing her soul at once, fainted into his arms. It was Astarté herself, the queen of Babylon, the woman Zadig adored and reproached himself for adoring; the woman whose fate he had so mourned and so feared. For a moment he lost the use of his senses. Then, fixing his gaze on Astarté’s eyes, which were reopening with a languor mingled with embarrassment and tenderness, he cried, “Oh, immortal powers, who govern the destinies of frail humanity, are you restoring Astarté to me? At what a time, in what a place, in what a state do I see her again!” He fell to his knees before Astarté and pressed his forehead to the dust at her feet. The queen of Babylon raised him and made him sit beside her on the bank of the stream. Again and again she wiped her eyes, from which the tears kept flowing afresh. Twenty times she returned to words her sobs had interrupted. She asked what chance had brought them together, and suddenly forestalled his answers with more questions. She began the story of her misfortunes, then wanted to know Zadig’s. At last, when both had somewhat quieted the tumult in their souls, Zadig told her briefly what adventure had brought him to this meadow. “But, unhappy and revered queen, how do I find you again in this remote place, dressed as a slave, with other slave women searching for a basilisk to cook in rosewater on a physician’s orders?”
“While they look for their basilisk,” the beautiful Astarté said, “I will tell you all I have suffered, and all I forgive heaven now that I see you again. You know that the king my husband resented your being the most lovable of men; for that reason, one night he resolved to have you strangled and me poisoned. You know how heaven allowed my little mute to warn me of His Sublime Majesty’s order. No sooner had the faithful Cador compelled you to obey me and leave than he dared to enter my rooms in the middle of the night through a secret passage. He carried me away and took me to the temple of Orosmade, where his brother, the magus, hid me inside a colossal statue whose base reaches the temple’s foundations and whose head touches the vault. I was as if buried there, but the magus attended me, and I lacked none of life’s necessities. Meanwhile, at daybreak, His Majesty’s apothecary entered my bedroom with a potion compounded of henbane, opium, hemlock, black hellebore, and aconite; another officer went to your house with a cord of blue silk. They found no one. To deceive the king more thoroughly, Cador pretended to come and accuse us both. He said you had taken the road to India and I the road to Memphis. Agents were sent after you and after me.
“The couriers searching for me did not know me. Almost no one but you had ever seen my face, and then in my husband’s presence and at his command. They set off in pursuit, guided by the description they had been given. On the borders of Egypt they caught sight of a woman of my height, perhaps even more charming than I was. She was wandering about in tears; they had no doubt she was the queen of Babylon, and brought her to Moabdar. At first their mistake threw the king into a violent rage; but soon, examining the woman more closely, he found her very beautiful and was consoled. Her name was Missouf. I have since been told that in Egyptian the name means the beautiful, capricious woman. She was indeed; but she had as much cunning as caprice. Moabdar liked her. She brought him so completely under her sway that she had herself declared his wife. Then her character unfolded in full: without fear, she indulged every folly her imagination could devise. She tried to compel the chief of the magi, who was old and gouty, to dance before her; when he refused, she persecuted him fiercely. She ordered her master of the horse to make her a jam tart. In vain he protested that he was no pastry cook: he had to make the tart, and was dismissed because it was too badly burned. She gave the office of master of the horse to her dwarf, and the post of chancellor to a page. That was how she governed Babylon. Everyone missed me. The king, who had been a fairly honorable man until the moment he decided to poison me and have you strangled, seemed to have drowned his virtues in his prodigious love for the beautiful, capricious woman. He came to the temple on the great festival of the sacred fire. I saw him imploring the gods for Missouf at the feet of the statue in which I was hidden. I raised my voice and cried, ‘The gods reject the prayers of a king turned tyrant, who sought the death of a reasonable woman so that he could marry a madwoman.’ These words so confounded Moabdar that his mind grew troubled. The oracle I had delivered and Missouf’s tyranny were enough to rob him of his reason. Within a few days he went mad.
“His madness, which seemed a punishment from heaven, was the signal for revolt. People rose up and rushed to arms. Babylon, so long sunk in idle luxury, became the scene of a dreadful civil war. They brought me out of my hollow statue and placed me at the head of a faction. Cador hurried to Memphis to bring you back to Babylon. The prince of Hyrcania, hearing this disastrous news, returned with his army to form a third faction in Chaldea. He attacked the king, who rushed to meet him with his mad Egyptian woman. Moabdar died covered in wounds. Missouf fell into the victor’s hands. As misfortune would have it, I myself was captured by a Hyrcanian detachment and brought before the prince at precisely the moment when Missouf was being brought to him. You will no doubt be flattered to learn that the prince found me more beautiful than the Egyptian; but you will be distressed to hear that he destined me for his harem. He told me very firmly that as soon as he had finished a military expedition he was about to undertake, he would come to me. Imagine my anguish. My bonds with Moabdar were broken; I could belong to Zadig; and I was falling into this barbarian’s chains! I answered him with all the pride my rank and feelings gave me. I had always heard that heaven bestowed on people of my station a stamp of grandeur that, with a word or a glance, brought anyone rash enough to stray from the deepest respect back into its humble submission. I spoke as a queen, but I was treated as a lady’s attendant. Without even deigning to address me, the Hyrcanian told his Black eunuch that I was an impertinent woman, but he thought me pretty. He ordered him to take care of me and put me on the favorites’ regimen, to freshen my complexion and make me more worthy of his favors on the day he found it convenient to honor me with them. I told him I would kill myself. He answered with a laugh that people did not kill themselves, that he was used to such behavior, and left me like a man who has just put a parrot in his menagerie. What a condition for the foremost queen in the world—and, more than that, for a heart that belonged to Zadig!”
At these words he threw himself at her knees and bathed them in tears. Astarté tenderly raised him and continued: “I found myself in a barbarian’s power, the rival of a madwoman with whom I was confined. She told me her Egyptian adventure. From the features with which she described you, from the time, from the dromedary you were riding, from every circumstance, I concluded that it was Zadig who had fought for her. I had no doubt you were in Memphis, and resolved to escape there. ‘Beautiful Missouf,’ I told her, ‘you are much more amusing than I am; you will entertain the prince of Hyrcania far better than I could. Help me find a way to escape. You will reign alone; you will make me happy by ridding yourself of a rival.’ Missouf planned my escape with me. So I left in secret with an Egyptian slave woman.
“I was already near Arabia when a famous robber named Arbogad seized me and sold me to merchants, who brought me to this castle where Lord Ogul lives. He bought me without knowing who I was. He is a sensual man, interested only in feasting, who believes God put him into the world to keep a lavish table. He is so excessively fat that he is always on the verge of suffocating. His physician, who has little influence over him when he is digesting well, rules him like a despot when he has eaten too much. He has persuaded him that he will cure him with a basilisk cooked in rosewater. Lord Ogul has promised his hand to whichever of his slaves brings him a basilisk. You see that I leave them to their eager efforts to deserve this honor; and I have never had less desire to find that basilisk than since heaven allowed me to see you again.”
Then Astarté and Zadig said to each other all that feelings long restrained, all that their misfortunes and their love could inspire in the noblest and most passionate hearts; and the spirits who preside over love carried their words to the sphere of Venus.
The women returned to Ogul’s house without having found anything. Zadig had himself presented to him and spoke in these terms: “May immortal health descend from heaven to watch over all your days! I am a physician. On hearing of your illness I hurried to you, and I have brought you a basilisk cooked in rosewater. Not that I aspire to marry you: I ask only for the freedom of a young Babylonian slave woman you have had for a few days. I agree to remain a slave in her place if I am not fortunate enough to cure the magnificent Lord Ogul.”
The proposal was accepted. Astarté left for Babylon with Zadig’s servant, promising Zadig she would send him a courier without delay to tell him everything that had happened. Their farewell was as tender as their reunion had been. The moment of reunion and the moment of parting are the two greatest turning points of life, as the great book of the Zend says. Zadig loved the queen as much as he swore he did, and the queen loved Zadig more than she told him.
Meanwhile Zadig spoke to Ogul as follows: “My lord, my basilisk is not to be eaten; all its virtue must enter you through the pores. I have put it in a small, well-inflated skin bag covered with a thin hide. You must strike this bag with all your strength, and I must send it back to you repeatedly. After a few days of this regimen you will see what my art can do.” On the first day Ogul was quite out of breath and thought he would die of exhaustion. On the second he was less tired and slept better. In eight days he recovered all the strength, health, lightness, and good spirits of his finest years. “You have played ball and practiced moderation,” Zadig told him. “Learn that no basilisk exists in nature, that moderation and exercise always keep us well, and that the art of making excess and health live together is as fanciful as the philosopher’s stone, judicial astrology, and the theology of the magi.”
Ogul’s chief physician, sensing how dangerous this man was to medicine, joined forces with the personal apothecary to send Zadig looking for basilisks in the next world. Thus, after always being punished for doing good, he was about to perish for having cured a gluttonous lord. He was invited to an excellent dinner. He was to be poisoned at the second course; but at the first he received a courier from the beautiful Astarté. He left the table and departed. When you are loved by a beautiful woman, says the great Zoroaster, you always find a way out of trouble in this world.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, in separate source-only translation tasks, not from the Musean edition or a published English translation. Same complete scope and author’s notes; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
The Basilisk.
When he reached a beautiful meadow, he saw several women searching very carefully for something. He took the liberty of approaching one and asking whether he might have the honor of helping them search. "Don't even think of it," the Syrian woman answered. "Only women can touch what we're looking for." "That's very strange," Zadig said. "May I ask what this thing is that only women are allowed to touch?" "A basilisk," she said. "A basilisk, ma'am! And why, if I may ask, are you looking for a basilisk?" "For our lord and master Ogul. You can see his castle beside that river, at the far end of the meadow. We're his very humble slaves. Lord Ogul is sick. His doctor has ordered him to eat a basilisk cooked in rosewater. It's a very rare animal, and it only lets women catch it. So Lord Ogul has promised to make whichever of us brings him one his beloved wife. Please let me keep looking. You can see what I stand to lose if one of my companions finds it first."
Zadig left the Syrian woman and the others to look for their basilisk and walked on through the meadow. At the edge of a small stream, he found another woman lying on the grass, looking for nothing. Her figure seemed majestic, but a veil covered her face. She was leaning toward the stream, sighing deeply. In her hand she held a little stick. With it, she was tracing letters in the fine sand between the grass and the stream. Zadig was curious to see what she was writing. He came closer and saw a Z, then an A. He was startled. Then a D appeared, and he trembled. Nothing could equal his surprise when he saw the last two letters of his name. He stood motionless for a while. At last he broke the silence, speaking in a halting voice: "Oh, kind lady! Forgive a stranger, an unhappy man, for daring to ask what amazing chance has brought me here to find the name ZADIG written by your divine hand." At the sound of that voice and those words, the woman lifted her veil with a trembling hand. She looked at Zadig and cried out with tenderness, surprise, and joy. Overcome by all the different feelings flooding her heart at once, she fainted in his arms. It was Astarté herself, the queen of Babylon. It was the woman Zadig adored and blamed himself for adoring, the woman whose fate had made him weep so much and fear so much. For a moment, he lost all awareness. Then he fixed his eyes on Astarté's. They were opening again, weakly, with a mixture of embarrassment and tenderness. "Oh, immortal powers who guide the fates of weak human beings!" he cried. "Are you giving Astarté back to me? At what a time, in what a place, in what a condition I find her again!" He fell to his knees before Astarté and pressed his forehead into the dust at her feet. The queen of Babylon raised him and made him sit beside her at the stream's edge. Again and again, she wiped her eyes, but the tears kept flowing. Twenty times she tried to resume what she was saying, only to be interrupted by her sobs. She asked what chance had brought them together, then cut off his answers with more questions. She began telling him her troubles, then wanted to hear his. At last, when the turmoil in their hearts had calmed a little, Zadig briefly told her how he had come to this meadow. "But, my unfortunate and honored queen, how do I find you in this remote place, dressed as a slave, with other slave women looking for a basilisk to cook in rosewater on a doctor's orders?"
"While they look for their basilisk," the beautiful Astarté said, "I'll tell you everything I've suffered, and everything I forgive heaven for now that I see you again. You know that the king, my husband, resented your being the most charming of men. That was why, one night, he decided to have you strangled and me poisoned. You know how heaven allowed my little mute servant to warn me of his sublime majesty's order. The faithful Cador had barely forced you to obey me and leave when he dared to enter my rooms in the middle of the night through a secret passage. He carried me away to the temple of Orosmade. There his brother, the priest, hid me inside an enormous statue whose base reaches the temple's foundations and whose head touches its vaulted roof. I was buried there, in a way, but the priest looked after me, and I had everything I needed. Meanwhile, at dawn, his majesty's apothecary entered my room with a potion containing henbane, opium, hemlock, black hellebore, and aconite. Another officer went to your house with a blue silk cord. They found no one. To deceive the king more thoroughly, Cador pretended to come and accuse us both. He said you had taken the road to India and I the road to Memphis. Men were sent after both of us.
"The messengers looking for me didn't know me. I had almost never shown my face to anyone but you, and then only in my husband's presence and on his orders. They pursued me with only the description they had been given of my appearance. At the Egyptian border, they came across a woman of my height who may have been even more attractive. She was wandering around in tears. They had no doubt that she was the queen of Babylon and took her to Moabdar. Their mistake first sent the king into a violent rage. But soon, after taking a closer look at the woman, he found her very beautiful and was consoled. Her name was Missouf. I've since been told that in Egyptian this name means the beautiful, unpredictable woman. She was certainly that. But she was as cunning as she was unpredictable. Moabdar liked her. She gained such control over him that she had herself declared his wife. Then her character came out in full. She gave free rein, without fear, to every crazy idea that entered her head. She tried to make the chief priest, who was old and had gout, dance for her. When he refused, she persecuted him fiercely. She ordered her master of the horse to bake her a jam tart. He tried in vain to explain that he wasn't a pastry cook. He had to make the tart, and then he was dismissed because it was too badly burned. She made her dwarf master of the horse and gave a page the chancellor's job. That was how she governed Babylon. Everyone missed me. The king had been a fairly decent man until the moment he decided to poison me and have you strangled. Now he seemed to have drowned all his virtues in his overwhelming love for this beautiful, unpredictable woman. On the great festival of the sacred fire, he came to the temple. I saw him praying to the gods for Missouf at the feet of the statue where I was hidden. I raised my voice and called out, 'The gods reject the prayers of a king who has become a tyrant, who tried to kill a sensible wife so he could marry a madwoman.' These words so bewildered Moabdar that his mind became disturbed. The oracle I had delivered and Missouf's tyranny were enough to make him lose his reason. Within a few days, he went mad.
"His madness seemed a punishment from heaven and became the signal for revolt. People rose up and rushed to arms. Babylon, which had spent so long sunk in idle luxury, became the scene of a terrible civil war. I was taken out of my hollow statue and put at the head of one faction. Cador hurried to Memphis to bring you back to Babylon. When the prince of Hyrcania heard this terrible news, he returned with his army to form a third faction in Chaldea. He attacked the king, who rushed out to meet him with his crazy Egyptian woman. Moabdar died, pierced with wounds. Missouf fell into the victor's hands. As bad luck would have it, a Hyrcanian detachment captured me too. They brought me before the prince at the very moment Missouf was brought to him. You'll no doubt be flattered to hear that the prince found me more beautiful than the Egyptian. But you'll be upset to learn that he intended me for his harem. He told me quite firmly that as soon as he finished the military expedition he was about to undertake, he would come to me. Imagine my grief. My ties to Moabdar were broken. I could belong to Zadig, and instead I was falling into this barbarian's chains! I answered him with all the pride my rank and my feelings gave me. I had always heard that heaven gave people of my standing a certain majesty. A single word or glance from them could force anyone bold enough to forget himself back into the humblest respect. I spoke as a queen, but I was treated as a lady's maid. Without even bothering to address me, the Hyrcanian told his black eunuch that I was impertinent, but that he found me pretty. He ordered him to look after me and put me on the diet given to his favorites. This would freshen my complexion and make me more worthy of his favors on the day he found it convenient to honor me with them. I told him I would kill myself. He laughed and replied that people didn't kill themselves, that he was used to such behavior. Then he left me like a man who has just put a parrot in his menagerie. What a position for the foremost queen in the world—and, more than that, for a heart that belonged to Zadig!"
At these words he fell to his knees before her and bathed her knees in tears. Astarté tenderly helped him up and continued: "I found myself in a barbarian's power, shut up with a madwoman who was my rival. She told me about her adventure in Egypt. From her description of your appearance, the timing, the dromedary you rode, and all the circumstances, I realized it was Zadig who had fought for her. I had no doubt you were in Memphis and decided to escape there. 'Beautiful Missouf,' I told her, 'you're much more amusing than I am. You'll entertain the prince of Hyrcania far better than I could. Help me find a way to escape. You'll reign alone, and by getting rid of a rival, you'll make me happy.' Missouf helped me plan my escape. So I left secretly with an Egyptian slave woman.
"I was already near Arabia when a famous robber named Arbogad kidnapped me and sold me to merchants. They brought me to this castle, where Lord Ogul lives. He bought me without knowing who I was. He's a man devoted to pleasure who thinks only of fine dining. He believes God put him in the world to keep a dinner table. He's so excessively fat that he's always on the verge of suffocating. His doctor has little influence over him when his digestion is good, but rules him like a despot when he has eaten too much. He has convinced him he can cure him with a basilisk cooked in rosewater. Lord Ogul has promised to marry whichever of his slave women brings him a basilisk. As you see, I leave them to hurry about earning this honor. And I've never wanted to find that basilisk less than I do now, since heaven has allowed me to see you again."
Then Astarté and Zadig said everything that feelings held back for so long, everything that their troubles and their love, could inspire in the noblest and most passionate hearts. The spirits who watch over love carried their words as far as the sphere of Venus.
The women returned to Ogul's house without finding anything. Zadig had himself shown in and spoke to him as follows: "May immortal health come down from heaven and care for you every day of your life! I'm a doctor. When I heard of your illness, I hurried here and brought you a basilisk cooked in rosewater. That doesn't mean I intend to marry you. All I ask is freedom for a young slave woman from Babylon you've had for a few days. I agree to remain a slave in her place if I don't have the good fortune to cure the magnificent Lord Ogul."
The offer was accepted. Astarté left for Babylon with Zadig's servant, promising to send a messenger immediately to tell him everything that had happened. Their farewell was as tender as their reunion had been. The moment when we meet again and the moment when we part are life's two greatest milestones, as the great book of the Zend says. Zadig loved the queen as much as he swore he did, and the queen loved Zadig more than she told him.
Meanwhile, Zadig spoke to Ogul: "Sir, you don't eat my basilisk. All its power must enter your body through your pores. I've put it in a small, well-inflated bag covered with a thin skin. You must hit this bag with all your strength, and I'll hit it back to you again and again. After a few days on this treatment, you'll see what my skill can do." On the first day, Ogul was completely out of breath and thought he would die of exhaustion. On the second, he was less tired and slept better. In eight days, he regained all the strength, health, lightness, and good spirits of his best years. "You've played ball and lived moderately," Zadig told him. "Understand that no basilisk exists in nature. Moderation and exercise keep you healthy. The art of combining overindulgence with good health is as imaginary as the philosopher's stone, predictive astrology, and the priests' theology."
Ogul's chief doctor realized how dangerous this man was to medicine. He joined forces with Ogul's personal apothecary to send Zadig to look for basilisks in the next world. So, after always being punished for doing good, he was about to die for curing a gluttonous lord. He was invited to an excellent dinner. He was to be poisoned at the second course, but at the first he received a messenger from the beautiful Astarté. He left the table and set off. When a beautiful woman loves you, says the great Zoroaster, you always find a way out of trouble in this world.
About this section
Chapter 18: The Basilisk is part of Zadig, or Destiny by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 20 of 23 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.