Exotic Pleasures (Persia and Asia observations)

-soned horses, or the Golden Fleeces original: "Colchide vellera aurea"; a reference to the mythical Golden Fleece of Colchis sought by Jason and the Argonauts, often used as a metaphor for great wealth or difficult achievements. snatched from Colchis, such as are perhaps owed to Princes and held in high value in this martial age original: "Martio hôc ævô"; Kaempfer acknowledges the contemporary 18th-century climate of frequent European warfare, contrasting it with his peaceful scientific pursuits.; but rather bundles of paper filled with Curiosities and Observations, which I have laboriously gathered throughout the whole of Asia at the cost of my prime years. I say "of paper," and therefore of a weight or price hardly to be estimated: yet they are worthy and fitting enough that I should dedicate them as sacred to YOU, MOST HIGH COUNT, and I know not whether to anyone else: to YOU, a Hero endowed with virtue no less in the toga than in the military cloakoriginal: "togatâ non minùs quàm ſagatâ"; Roman metaphors where the toga represents civil/political life and the sagum represents military service., who weighs both arms and letters on an equal scale and embraces both with love. For from the time when, having left the military camps, YOU returned YOURSELF to the Fatherland and to the helm of YOUR great County, YOU YOURSELF frequently take care to sweeten the burdens of government with these humanistic studiesoriginal: "studiis humanioribus"; refers to the "studia humanitatis" or the humanities, encompassing literature, history, and moral philosophy intended to refine the character of a ruler.