Heading westward from the Pillars of Hercules, Lucian in his sloop and with a crew of fifty finally reached the Atlantic
Ocean. Filled with a thirst for adventure and an intellectual restlessness to see what was on the other side of the world, he found the first day of the voyage delightful. Then came a terrible storm that drove the ship before it for seventy-nine days. On the eightieth day, the adventurers came to a lofty wooded island and went ashore.
After resting, twenty sailors accompanied Lucian on an exploration of the island. They discovered a bronze tablet announcing that Hercules and Dionysus had been there, and they saw two huge footprints. They also discovered that the river had its source in a grapevine and contained Chian wine. Eating the fish that swam in it made them drunk.
The inhabitants of the island were women, human from the waist up, but growing on vines. Several of the crew, who became too friendly with these creatures, soon found themselves entangled in the vines and taking root. They had to be left behind. The others filled their casks with wine and water and set sail, but they ran into a whirlwind that whipped the sloop hundreds of miles into the air. A week later, the ship was thrown upon the moon, which was
inhabited by men riding vultures. The king of the moon, Endymion, enlisted the service of the Greeks in his war against Phaethon and his people of the sun.
The mighty invasion force was made up of eighty thousand vulture-riding cavalry and twenty thousand troops riding birds covered with grass who had lettuce leaves for wings. This vegetarian force had armor of vegetable husks but Greek swords. Among their allies were fighters from other constellations astride monster fleas.
The army of the sun rode flying ants, gnats, and mosquitoes. Some hurled giant radishes, others wielded asparagus spears. They were nevertheless no match for the lunar troops until so many centaur reinforcements arrived that the number could not be set down for fear of creating incredulity. When the moon army was put to flight, Lucian and his friends were captured and bound with spider webs.
To bring the moon people to terms, Phaethon erected a cloud screen, and, cut off from sunlight, the moon troops soon surrendered. The terms of capitulation were inscribed on a slab of electrum. With the coming of peace, Lucian had the opportunity to explore the moon and note its wonders.
On the way home, the Greeks paused at Lamptown, which was inhabited by lanterns, and at Cloud-Cuckooland, where Lucian verified the details of Aristophanes’ comedy
The Birds (414 B.C.E.). Finally the travelers reached the ocean again, only to have their sloop swallowed by a huge whale. In its belly, amid a clutter of wrecked ships, they found Scintharus, who was raising vegetables on an island. He had lived there for twenty-seven years, ever since leaving Cyprus.
There were many other inhabitants, all quarrelsome and unjust. Some had eel eyes and lobster faces; others were half human and half animal. Since their only weapons were fish bones, Lucian decided to attack them. The creatures were all slain in two battles in which the Greeks suffered only one casualty; the sailing master was stabbed with a mullet spine.
One day, after living in the whale for one year and eight months, the Greeks heard a loud uproar in the outside world. Peering between the whale’s teeth, they
watched a naval battle of giants who manned floating islands and fought with oysters and sponges.
At last, the Greeks conceived a scheme to gain their liberty. They set fire to the forest inside the whale; then, as the creature was about to suffocate, they wedged open its jaws and sailed out, with Scintharus as pilot. They did not get far, however, for a north wind froze the ocean. They found refuge in a cave they hollowed in the ice until, after a month, it occurred to them to hoist the sails and let the ship glide across the smooth ice to open water.
Sailing in a sea ofmilk, they took on provisions at a cheese island. They stopped at the Isle of the Blessed and watched a lawsuit between Theseus and Menelaus for the custody of Helen. While the hearing was in progress, Helen ran off with a new sweetheart, aided by some of Lucian’s crew, and the tourists were deported. Lucian, however, had time to consult Homer on moot points concerning his life and writing and to catalog the famous Greeks who inhabited the isle. Also, he witnessed a prison break by the damned and watched the heroic exploits of Achilles in recapturing them.
On their voyage once again, the travelers passed a place of punishment for liars. Herodotus was there, but Lucian knew that he himself was safe because he had never written anything but the truth. The company spent a month at the Port of Dreams and also paused briefly to deliver a note to Calypso from Odysseus. Pirates attacked them several times and their ship was destroyed, but the travelers finally reached safety in a land that Lucian recognized as the continent facing his world.