The Cartesian and the seven little empiricists
le cartésien
Cochonfucius paid a homage to the
brothers Grimm.
There was once upon a time an old empiricist lady who had seven little empiricists.
One day she wanted to climb a volcano to fetch some lava in a bucket, to provide some heating.
So she called all seven to her and said, "Dear children, I have to go to the volcano,
be on your guard against the Cartesian,
and you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet."
The little empiricists close the door very carefully.
Soon there comes someone knocking.
« Open the door, dear children, for I am back home. »
But the little empiricists knew that it was the Cartesian, by the rough voice.
Then the Cartesian went away to a conceptualist and had his voice softened.
He came back, knocked at the door of the house, and the little empiricists
saw his black paws against the window. They send him away once more.
Then the Cartesian went away to a nominalist and had his paws whitened.
He put his paws in through the window, and the door opened.
He goes at the empiricists. They try to hide in various places
- in an antimetabole ;
- under a catabasis ;
- in a catachresis ;
- on top of a pleonasm ;
- under a paronymy ;
- among spoonerisms ;
- in a metonymy.
But the Cartesian found them all and ate them, except the one in the metonymy.
Then he laid himself down under a cultural reference
and began to sleep.
Soon afterwards the old empiricist lady came home again. She sought her children, but they were
nowhere to be found, except the one in the metonymy, who told her all
about the Cartesian's visit.
She saw the Cartesian sound asleep.
Ah, heavens, she thought, is it possible that my poor
children whom he has swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?
Then the surviving empiricist had to run home and fetch various tools, and the lady cut
open the Cartesian's stomach. All six empiricists sprang out one after another.
They had suffered no injury whatever.
They stuff him with quite heavy epanadiploses and sew him up again.
When he got up, he went to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and move about,
the epanadiploses in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled.
What rumbles and tumbles
Against my poor bones?
I thought 'twas six empiricists
But it feels like big epanadiploses.
When he stooped over the water, he went splash and he had to drown miserably.
So they all said:
« Splash, went the Cartesian! Splash, went the Cartesian! »
and it could be that they are still at it.
Thanks to
Robert Godwin-Jones
for finding illustrations ; see also some other ones, by
Robert Lumley.