Exotic Pleasures (Persia and Asia observations)

the Lord and Ruling Count of Lippe, my most Merciful Lord, graciously appointed my humble self original: "tenuitatem meam"; a common self-deprecating formal expression as the Chief Physician original: "archiatrum"; the senior medical officer to a noble court to his most Illustrious House. Although I consider this a singular honor, and it was not contrary to my wishes, it nevertheless claimed the greater and primary part of my leisure and my life, as is only right.

For this reason, my "spoils" Referring to the "spoils of knowledge" mentioned on the previous page. were set aside and hidden away in chests; in these they have lain buried until now, to my great sorrow, until recently, being relieved of some part of my duties, I recovered some spare hours. With these came the spirit and the purpose of rescuing my papers from destruction—papers already gnawed by cockroaches and moths, moldy, and largely faded by the salt water with which they had once been flooded in shipwrecks.

While I resolve to do this, it pleases me to send forth in this present little work a sort of taste original Greek: geuma, meaning a sample or appetizer and a first trial of them, from which the Kind Reader may learn in advance the varieties of my information. In this, I shall imitate our merchants, who, returning from the great trading centers, display samples of their wares to test the desires of buyers. As Ulysses wittily says in the works of Euripides, when he is about to sell wine to Silenus: A reference to Euripides' satyr play, "Cyclops," where Odysseus (Ulysses) offers wine to the satyr Silenus. "Do you wish," he says—