Book of the Bee

Historical scan page 57

INVENTION OF INSTRUMENTS FOR WORKING IN IRON. 29 and eighty-seven years old when he begat Lamech ; and he lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. Lamech was a hundred and eighty-two years old when he begat Noah ; and he lived seven hundred and seventy- seven years1. CHAPTER XIX2. OF THE INVENTION OF THE INSTRUMENTS FOR WORKING IN IRON3. SOME say that Cainan4 and Tubal-cain, who were of the family of Cain, were the first who invented the three tools of the art of working in iron, the anvil, hammer and tongs. The art of working in iron is the mother and begetter of all arts ; as the head is to the body, so is it to all other crafts. And as all the limbs of the body cease to perform their functions if the head is taken away from it, so also all other arts would cease if the art of working in iron were to come to an end. In the days of Jubal and Tubal-cain, the sons of Lamech the blind, Satan entered and dwelt in them, and they constructed all kinds of musical instruments, harps and pipes. Some say that spirits used to go into the reeds and disturb them, and that the sound from them was like the sound of singing and pipes5; and men constructed all kinds of musical instruments. Now this blind Lamech was a hunter, and could shoot 1 In the Oxford MS. 774 years. This MS. omits to say how old the patriarchs were when they begat their sons. 2 Chap, xx in the Oxford MS. 3 Gen. iv. 22. 4 This name seems to have crept into the text by mistake ; perhaps we should read^icu. See Gen. iv. 22. 5 JjRajso [Siu/ Ab. Vo. .ji-acj UJl 0*^.0 yojoi jjijsjk, 0001 .yOo*.s ooot J«***ioo .yoota.^5 oi-sa^o jjjuk, JJjj .yooic^ JLa 000* ^c*-»o ^ao aaoo. ‘ They put together and made all kinds of music : Jubal made flutes and cithers and pipes, and the devils entered into them and dwelt in them ; and when they blew into them, the devils sang inside the flutes, and made a noise from within them. And Tubal-cain made cymbals and rattles and hand drums.’ Bezold ,Die Schatzhohle, p. 14; Brit. Mus. Add. 25,875, fol. 12 a, col. 1. * Glossed by in red ink on the margin of the MS, t Glossed by in red ink on the margin of the MS.