And If A Man
Cast Iron Therein, It Will Float Above.
And if men cast a feather
therein, it will sink to the bottom, and these be things against
kind.
And also, the cities there were lost because of sin. And there
beside grow trees that bear full fair apples, and fair of colour to
behold; but whoso breaketh them or cutteth them in two, he shall
find within them coals and cinders, in token that by wrath of God
the cities and the land were burnt and sunken into hell. Some men
clepe that sea the lake Dalfetidee; some, the flome of Devils; and
some the flome that is ever stinking. And into that sea sunk the
five cities by wrath of God; that is to say, Sodom, Gomorrah,
Aldama, Zeboim, and Zoar, for the abominable sin of sodomy that
reigned in them. But Zoar, by the prayer of Lot, was saved and
kept a great while, for it was set upon a hill; and yet sheweth
thereof some part above the water, and men may see the walls when
it is fair weather and clear. In that city Lot dwelt a little
while; and there was he made drunk of his daughters, and lay with
them, and engendered of them Moab and Ammon. And the cause why his
daughters made him drunk and for to lie by him was this: because
they saw no man about them, but only their father, and therefore
they trowed that God had destroyed all the world as he had done the
cities, as he had done before by Noah's flood. And therefore they
would lie by with their father for to have issue, and for to
replenish the world again with people to restore the world again by
them; for they trowed that there had been no more men in all the
world; and if their father had not been drunk, he had not lain with
them.
And the hill above Zoar men cleped it then Edom and after men
cleped it Seir, and after Idumea. Also at the right side of that
Dead Sea, dwelleth yet the wife of Lot in likeness of a salt stone;
for that she looked behind her when the cities sunk into hell.
This Lot was Haran's son, that was brother to Abraham; and Sarah,
Abraham's wife, and Milcah, Nahor's wife, were sisters to the said
Lot. And the same Sarah was of eld four score and ten year when
Isaac her son was gotten on her. And Abraham had another son
Ishmael that he gat upon Hagar his chamberer. And when Isaac his
son was eight days old, Abraham his father let him be circumcised,
and Ishmael with him that was fourteen year old: wherefore the
Jews that come of Isaac's line be circumcised the eighth day, and
the Saracens that come of Ishmael's line be circumcised when they
be fourteen year of age.
And ye shall understand, that within the Dead Sea, runneth the flom
Jordan, and there it dieth, for it runneth no further more, and
that is a place that is a mile from the church of Saint John the
Baptist toward the west, a little beneath the place where that
Christian men bathe them commonly. And a mile from flom Jordan is
the river of Jabbok, the which Jacob passed over when he came from
Mesopotamia. This flom Jordan is no great river, but it is
plenteous of good fish; and it cometh out of the hill of Lebanon by
two wells that be clept Jor and Dan, and of the two wells hath it
the name. And it passeth by a lake that is clept Maron. And after
it passeth by the sea of Tiberias, and passeth under the hills of
Gilboa; and there is a full fair vale, both on that one side and on
that other of the same river. And men go [on] the hills of
Lebanon, all in length unto the desert of Pharan; and those hills
part the kingdom of Syria and the country of Phoenicia; and upon
those hills grow trees of cedar that be full high, and they bear
long apples, and as great as a man's head.
And also this flom Jordan departeth the land of Galilee and the
land of Idumea and the land of Betron, and that runneth under earth
a great way unto a fair plain and a great that is clept Meldan in
Sarmois; that is to say, Fair or market in their language, because
that there is often fairs in that plain. And there becometh the
water great and large. In that plain is the tomb of Job.
And in that flom Jordan above-said was our Lord baptised of Saint
John, and the voice of God the Father was heard saying: HIC EST
FILIUS MEUS DILECTUS, ETC.; that is to say, 'This is my beloved
Son, in the which I am well pleased; hear him!' and the Holy Ghost
alighted upon him in likeness of a culver; and so at his baptising
was all the whole Trinity.
And through that flome passed the children of Israel, all dry feet;
and they put stones there in the middle place, in token of the
miracle that the water withdrew him so. Also in that flome Jordan
Naaman of Syria bathed him, that was full rich, but he was mesell;
and there anon he took his health.
About the flome Jordan be many churches where that many Christian
men dwelled. And nigh thereto is the city of Ai that Joshua
assailed and took. Also beyond the flome Jordan is the vale of
Mamre, and that is a full fair vale. Also upon the hill that I
spake of before, where our Lord fasted forty days, a two mile long
from Galilee, is a fair hill and an high, where the enemy the fiend
bare our Lord the third time to tempt him, and shewed him all the
regions of the world and said, HEC OMNIA TIBI DABO, SI CADENS
ADORAVERIS ME; that is to say, 'All this shall I give thee, if thou
fall and worship me.'
Also from the Dead Sea to go eastward, out of the marches of the
Holy Land that is clept the Land of Promission, is a strong castle
and a fair, in an hill that is clept Carak in Sarmois; that is to
say, Royally.
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