2 Comments

[26] The fairies are not to be seized on, and brought to answer for the hurt they do. So also the ecclesiastics vanish away from the tribunals of civil justice.

[27] The ecclesiastics take from young men the use of reason, by certain charms compounded of metaphysics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to execute what they command them. The fairies likewise are said to take young children out of their cradles, and to change them into natural fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief.

[28] In what shop or operatory the fairies make their enchantment, the old wives have not determined. But the operatories of the clergy are well enough known to be the universities, that received their discipline from authority pontifical.

[29] When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.

[30] The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994 . . . Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness . . . Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness, and to Whom it Accrueth . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/leviathan-part-iv-of-the-kingdom

Expand full comment

I love the new coined term "Twitterati" in reference to Tolkien's label for the Illuminati-influenced elite of Literature back in the 20th century called the "Literati" that Tom Shippey also talked about.

Expand full comment