Part 35 (1/2)
”By thy cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathomed depths of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye, By thy shut soul's hypocrisy, By the perfection of thine art, Which pa.s.sed for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee, and compel Thyself to be thy proper h.e.l.l!
”And on thy head I pour the vial Which doth devote thee to this trial; Not to slumber, nor to die, Shall be in thy destiny, Though thy death shall still seem near To thy wish, but as a fear; Lo! the spell now works around thee, And the clankless chain hath bound thee: O'er thy heart and brain together Hath the word been pa.s.sed-now wither!”
The Italian poem forms, in its first and second parts, a drama as complete as that of ”Manfred,” and, as I hope to render clear, one more consistent to the leading idea, or, as critics were wont to say, ”more coherent in the unities.” This idea in the one, as in the other, is that of a powerful _sorcerer_ a.s.sailed by a fiend in the form of remorse, and that with the most aggravating and insulting terms of contempt. In ”Manfred” the persecutor tells his victim that he shall be his own h.e.l.l, for that of all poisons his own evil heart is the worst. The Italian, more direct and less metaphysical still, alludes, in the accusation by the spirit, to no other punishment save that of conscience, and declares the magician to be poisoned through and through in himself:
”Tu sei cattivo e scelerato, Tu sei avvelenato Nel cuore e nell anima,”
and bids him go forth to be for ever pursued by the avenger.
Byron's poem is entirely based on sorcery, and is intended to set forth the tremendous mental struggles of a mind which has risen above mankind with supernatural power, which a.s.sails him with remorse. In the first place he simply goes to sleep; in the grand finale he resists, like Don Juan, or, as the saying is, ”dies game”-”only this, and nothing more”-leaving all idea of an end, object, moral, or system, entirely in the dark. ”Manfred” is merely dramatic for the sake of _stage effect_, and only excellent in impressing us with the artistic skill of the author. Its key is art for the sake of art, and effect on anybody, no matter who. Within this limit it is most admirable.
In both the Italian and English poems the one persecuted makes his strong point of departure from the discovery or knowledge that the persecuted is not one whom he has injured, but simply a mocking and tormenting sprite.
Thus the former text declares that when he finds he is pursued simply by Intialo, the shadow, which we may here translate ”his own imagination,”
he rallies with a tremendous counter-curse in which far more is meant than meets the eye. The grand mission of the _magus_ or sorcerer in all the occult lore of all antiquity, whether he appear as Buddha or any other man of men, is to conquer all enemies by tremendous power won by penance or by iron _will_. A favourite means of tormenting the enemy or fiend is to awaken the conscience of the magician, or, what is the same thing, to tempt him to sin, as Satan did Christ. But even conscience loses its power when we feel that the foe is exaggerating our sins, and only urging them for torment's sake, and especially when these sins are of a kind which from a _certain_ standpoint or code, are not sins at all.
And here we are brought to a subject so strange and witch-like that it is difficult to discuss or make clear. It is evident enough in ”Manfred”
that the great crime was the hero's forbidden love for his sister Astarte. This it is which crushes him. But it does not appear from the Italian (save to those deeply learned in the darker secrets of sorcery) why or how it is that the one persecuted so suddenly revives and defies the spirit, turning, as it were, his own power against him. In explaining this, I do not in the least conjecture, guess, or infer anything; I give the explanation as it was understood by the narrator, and as confirmed by other legends and traditions. It is this:
Michelet, in _La Sorciere_, which amid much lunacy or folly contains many truths and ingenious perceptions, has explained that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages was a kind of mad despairing revolt against the wrongs of society, of feudalism, and the Church. It was in very truth the precursor of Protestantism. Under the name of religion conscience had been abused, and artificial sins, dooming to h.e.l.l, been created out of every trifle, and out of almost every form of natural instincts. The reaction from this (which was a kind of nihilism or anarchy), was to declare the ant.i.thetic _excess_ of free will. One of the forms of this revolt was the belief that the greatest sorcerers were born (_ex filio et matre_) from the nearest relations, and that to dare and violate all such ties was to conquer by daring will the greatest power. It was the strongest defiance of the morality taught by the Church, therefore one of the highest qualifications for an iron-willed magician. It is specially pointed out in the legend of Diana that she began by such a sin, and so came to be queen of the witches; and the same idea of entire emanc.i.p.ation or illumination, or freedom from all ties, is the first step to the absolute free will which const.i.tutes the very basis of all magic. This, which is repugnant to humanity, was actually exalted by the Persian Magi to a duty or religious principle, and it was the same in Egypt as regarded ”first families.” The sorcerer pursued by Intialo bases all his power to resist on the mere fact that he is beloved by a beautiful witch.
This is the Astarte of the Italian drama, or a sister-the terrible tie which shows that a man is above conscience, and free from all fear of the powers that be, whether of earth or air. By it his triumph is complete.
He surmounts the accusation of being without morals by utterly denying their existence from a higher or illuminated point of view. The _magus_ claims to rank with the G.o.ds, and if a divinity _creates_ mankind as his children, and then has a child by a woman, he is in the same state as the sorcerer, according to wizards.
If any reproach attaches to the employment of such an element in poetry, then Byron and Sh.e.l.ley are far more to blame than the Italian witch-poet, who veiled his allusion with much greater care than they did, and who had the vast excuse of _sincere belief_, while their highest aim was mere art. The wizard-poet has his heart in this faith, as in a religion, and he is one with his hero. Manfred is at best only a broken-down magician who presents a few boldly dramatic daring traits-the Italian sorcerer, who is far more defiant and fearless, conquers. ”I am more malignant than thou art,” is a terrible utterance; so is the tone of affected pity for the baffled tormentor, in which we detect a shade of sarcasm based on overwhelming triumph. This feeling, be it observed, progresses, _crescendo forte_, gradually and very artistically, from the first verse to the last. Intialo has threatened to make the victim a sorry cur who comes at a call; the sorcerer replies that he will make ”a swine's snout”
of Intialo. Finally, he dares the fiend to meet him at midnight at the great Witches' Sabbat, at the dread walnut-tree of Benevento. Here the threats reach an ingenious and terrible climax, though the form in which they are expressed is only quite clear to the initiated. The sorcerer says, ”When thou thinkest that thou see'st my shadow thou wilt behold thine own,” or in other words, ”You who have sought to torment me by a _shadow_ shall yourself be mocked by finding that you are only mine.”
This climax of daring the fiend to meet him at Benevento, at the tremendous and terrible rendezvous of all the devils, witches, and sorcerers, and then and there trying conclusions with him in delusion and magic, or a strife of shadows, while leaning against the awful tree itself, which is the central point of the Italian Domdaniel, is magnificently imagined.
In Goethe's ”Faust,” as in Byron's ”Manfred,” the hero is a magician, but he is not in either true to the name or character. The great _magus_ of early ages, even like the black Voodoo of America, had it clearly before him all the time that his mission or business, above all things, was to develop an indomitable _will_ superior to that of men or spirits. Every point is gained by _force_, or by will and penance. In real sorcery there is no such thing as a pact with a devil, and becoming his slave after a time. This is a purely later-Roman invention, a result of the adoption of the mixture of Jewish monotheism and Persian dualism, which formed the Catholic Church. In Goethe's ”Faust” we have the greatest weakness, and an extreme confusion of character. The conclusion of the tale is contradictory or absurd, and the difficulty is solved with the aid of a _Deus ex machina_. The hero is a sorcerer, and _there is not a trace of true sorcery or magianism or tremendous will and work in the whole drama_. Beautiful things are said and done, but, take it for all in all, it is a grand promenade which leads to nothing. {251}
In the Italian legend, brief and rude as it is, there appears a tremendous power worked out with great consistency. The demon or spirit, intent on causing remorse or despair (_ad affretare il rimorso_), threatens the sorcerer with terrible maledictions. And these words, if we regard their real meaning and spirit, have never been surpa.s.sed in any poem.
And we should note here that the Italian sorcerer who subdues the devil by simple will and pluck is no Manfred or Faust drawn from the religious spirit of the Middle Ages. He belongs to the Etruscan age, or to that of the ancient Magi; he meets malediction with malediction, spell with spell, curse with curse, injury with injury, sarcasm and jeer with the same; he insults the devil, calling him his slave:
”Perche io sono di te-molto piu maligno.”
Until in the end they change parts, and the demon becomes the one tormented. Therefore there is in this legend, with all its rudeness, a conception which is so grand, as regards setting forth the possible power of man, and the _eritis sicut deus_ of modern science, that it is in unity and fulness far beyond any variant of the same subject.
That this is of great antiquity is clear, for out of this enchanted forest of Italian witchcraft and mystical sorcery there never yet came anything, great or small, which was not at least of the bronze, if not of the neolithic age.
Truly, when the chief character in a tradition of the old Etruscan land bears an Etruscan name, or that of a shadow called a shadow, we may well conclude that it is not of yesterday. So all things rise and bloom and pa.s.s away here on this earth to winter and decay, and are as phantoms which
”Come like shadows, so depart.”
For a last word, ”Manfred” and ”Faust” are only works of art, intended to ”interest” or amuse or charm the reader, and as such they are great.
They are simply dramas or show-pieces, which also give a high idea of the artistic skill of their writers. ”Intialo” sets forth the great idea of the true sorcerer, in which they both _fail_, and carries it out logically to a tremendous triumph. It is the very quintessence of all heresies, and of the first great heresy, _eritis sicut deus_.
There will not be wanting one or two critics of the low kind who take their hints from the disavowals of the author to declare that his book is just what it is not, who will write that I think I have discovered a better poet than Keats in Marietta Pery, and a far greater than Goethe or Byron in the unknown author of the invocation to ”Intialo.” But all that I _truly mean_ is that the former is nearer to old tradition, and more succinct than the English bard-”only this and nothing more”-while in ”Intialo” we have given, as no one ever expressed it, the true ideal of the magician who, overcoming all qualms of conscience, whether innate or suggested, and trampling under foot all moral human conventions, rises to _will_, and victory over all enemies, especially the demons of the threshold. As a poem, I no more claim special merit for it than I would for Marietta's; {253} indeed, to the very considerable number of ”highly cultivated” people who only perceive poetry in form and style, and cannot find it in the grandest conceptions unless they are elegantly expressed, what I have given in this connection will not appear as poetry at all.
CAIN AND HIS WORs.h.i.+PPERS THE SPELL OF THE MIRROR-THE INVOCATION TO CAIN-THE WITCH-HISTORY OF CAIN AND ABEL