Kitap 1
4
Now, when I fell in with all these works, I did not greatly blame the men for their lying, because I saw at once that this was the habit of those even who promise to write philosophy. But the one thing that filled me with wonder at them was that they believed their falsifications undetected. Accordingly, I too, since my vanity made me eager to leave something for posterity, was not going to be the only one without a share in the story-teller's license, and as I had nothing true to relate for I have had no experiences worth telling-I turned myself to lying far more consistently than the others. For the one true statement I shall make is this: that everything I say will be a lie. In this way I think I should even escape the arraignment of others, since I admit myself that there is not a true word in what I say. Well, then, my book deals with things I neither saw nor lived through myself, nor learned from others things, moreover, which absolutely do not exist, nor could possibly. Wherefore my readers must put no manner of trust in them.
5
I once made a voyage, setting forth from the Pillars of Hercules into the Western Ocean, with a following wind. The cause of my journey and my object in making it were the restless curiosity of my mind, a yearning for novelties, and a desire to learn what is the boundary of the ocean, and what sort of people dwell on the other side. To this end I stored a ship with a great quantity of provisions, put plenty of water, too, aboard, secured fifty of my comrades who were of my way of thinking, laid in, moreover, a good stock of weapons, furnished myself with an excellent ship's master at high wages, and had the vessel—she was a light-built, fast-sailing craft — put in repair as though for a long, hard voyage.
