But when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counseclass="underline" she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs.
Aurora no longer loved him, and one day she turned him into a grasshopper, a cicada. Some claim that when today we hear the chirping of cicadas, it is just a group of old men babbling incessantly.
Judaism and Christianity had very strong views about long life. The Bible is against immortality; Psalm 90, verse 10, sets the human lifespan at threescore and ten, though the possibility of 120 years is given in Genesis. When Adam and Eve had eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge, God said, ‘See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever.’ God banished them from the Garden of Eden and stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword to guard the way to the tree of life.
Old age could be the reward for a moral life and an indication of God’s favour. ‘Follow the whole instruction the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, prosper, and have a long life in the land you will possess.’ ‘Ye shall harken diligently unto my commandments that your days may be multiplied, and that of your children,’ says God in Deuteronomy. And in Proverbs: ‘The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.’
There are, nevertheless, claims in the Bible for very very long lives: Adam lives for 930, Noah 950 and Methuselah 969 years. Methuselah was a Hebrew patriarch and the grandfather of Noah; not much is known about him other than his extraordinary lifespan. There is also a figure from medieval Christian folklore whose legend began to spread in Europe in the thirteenth century, the case of Ahasverus, a Jewish cobbler, who told Christ to move on when he was carrying his cross and needed help. Christ told him that he would move on, but condemned Ahasverus to wander the earth and for his clothes to remain intact till Christ returned. And every 10 years he would be rejuvenated. There were reports that this Wandering Jew had been identified in 1252 at the Abbey of St Albans, and then again in Hamburg in 1642.
Many Indian fables and tales concern the ability to jump into another body—performed by advanced Yogis in order to live a longer life. There are also entire Hindu sects, the Naths and the Aghoras, devoted to the attainment of physical immortality by various methods. Long before modern science made such speculation unreasonable, people wishing to escape death turned to the supernatural world for answers. Examples include Chinese Taoists and the medieval alchemists and their search for the Philosopher’s Stone.
Denial of ageing can be very common, and longevity myths have been around for as long as humanity. Many of these legends involve places where people are reputed to live long. While it is true that people in certain cultures do not suffer many chronic illnesses while ageing, the lifespans of people in these places are hard to verify. As the Guinness Book of World Records stated in numerous editions from the 1960s to 1980s, ‘No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity.’
There were claims that Thomas Parr was the oldest man who ever lived, surviving till 152 years. He was said to have been born in 1483 near Shrewsbury. He did not marry until he was 80 years old and had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom died in infancy. He attributed his long life to his vegetarian diet and moral temperance, although when he was around a hundred years old he allegedly had an affair, and a child born out of wedlock. As news of his age spread, ‘Old Parr’ became a national celebrity and was painted by Rubens and Van Dyke. In 1635 he was brought to London to meet Charles I. In London he was treated as a spectacle, but the change in food and environment apparently caused his death. Charles I arranged for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey in 1635. William Harvey, the physician who discovered the circulation of the blood, performed a post-mortem on Parr’s body. His autopsy suggested that Thomas Parr was under 70 years old.
In around 1500, Alvise Cornaro, an Italian nobleman aged 40, was feeling very unwell, and was advised by his doctor ‘cut down on your riotous living, stop the drinking, cut out the rich food, eat as little as you can, and don’t abuse your body. You can get well.’ He wrote The Art of Living Long and argued that men and women were not destined to die at 60 or 70, but with care and a good constitution could live extremely long lives. The key to longevity lay in giving up excesses in all things, and he preached extreme moderation. He died aged 102.
Legends about healing waters abound. People have always talked about, and hoped for, water that will restore youth and health. Herodotus, the Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC, provided much information concerning the nature of the world and the status of the sciences during his lifetime. He referred to a fountain containing a very special kind of water located in the land of the Ethiopians, and he attributed the exceptional longevity of the Ethiopians to this water. Tales of healing waters are also linked to Alexander the Great in his search for the Water of Life. Travelling almost to the edge of the world, Alexander finds a darkened country and travels in it with his servant Andreas. Alexander can’t find his way through the darkness, but his servant does. Andreas drinks of the Water of Life and becomes immortal.
Another example that gave rise to the idea of a Fountain of Youth comes from the natives of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba, who told the early Spanish explorers that in Bimini, a land to the north, there were waters that had such miraculous curative powers that any old person who bathed in them would regain his youth. Juan Ponce de Leon, who had been with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, and who had later conquered and become governor of Puerto Rico, is supposed to have learned of the fable from the Indians. The fable was not new, and probably Ponce de Leon was vaguely cognisant of the fact that such waters had been mentioned by medieval writers, and that Alexander the Great had searched for such waters in eastern Asia. Ponce de Leon, who had become wealthy in the colonial service, equipped three ships at his own expense and set out to find the mythical fountain that would restore his health and make him young again. What he found was not Bimini but Florida, and now many patients clearly believe he was successful, as during the winter months they eschew the care of their good doctors and flee south to Florida’s warmer climate.
Myths about extreme old age persist into modern times. The Abkhasia are a people living in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, a mountainous area near the Iranian border. They have a reputation for extremely long and healthy lives. In the 1960s and 1970s claims were made for lifespans of 150, marriages at 110 and fatherhood at 136. The greatest claim was that one man, Shirali Muslimov, was 168 years old when he died in 1873. The Soviets honoured him with a postage stamp. An official passport listed his birth date as 1805; Muslimov had no known birth certificate. The story was taken up by National Geographic Magazine, which later recanted on the claim. Individuals claiming to be physically immortal include Comte de Saint-Germain; in eighteenth-century France, he claimed to be centuries old, and people who adhere to the Ascended Master Teachings are convinced of his physical immortality. An Indian saint known as Vallalar claimed to have achieved immortality before disappearing for ever from a locked room in 1874.