“An iron man who did on her attend,
His name was Talus, made of yron mould,
Immoveable, resistlesse—without end.”
SPENSER: _Faerie Queene_, v. c. i.
There once lived a Princess who was beautiful beyond words, but wicked
beyond belief; her whole soul was given to murder and licentiousness; yet
she was so crafty as to escape all suspicion, and this pleased her best
of all, for deceit was to her as dear as life itself. And this she
managed, as many another did in those days, by inveigling through her
agents handsome young men into her palace by night, where they were
invited to a banquet and then to a bed, and all went gaily till the next
morning at breakfast, when the Princess gave her victim in wine or food a
terrible and rapid poison, after which the corpse was carried away
secretly by her servants to be thrown into the river, or hidden in some
secret vault; and thus it was the lady sinned in secret while she kept up
a white name before the world.
Now it came to pass that a young man, who was a great friend of Virgil,
was taken in the snare by this Princess, and put to death and no more
heard of, when the great poet by his magic art learned the whole truth.
Then for revenge or punishment he made a man of iron with golden locks,
very beautiful to behold as a man, with sympathetic, pleasing air, one
who conversed fluently and in a winning voice; and yet he was all of
iron, and the spirit who was conjured into him was one without pity or
mercy.
Then Virgil bade the Iron Man walk to and fro past the palace of the
Princess, and she, seeing him, was more pleased than she had ever been
before, and at once sent out a messenger, who invited him to enter by a
secret gate, which he did, and was warmly received, and treated with a
great display of love. And in the morning at breakfast, as the Princess
hesitated to give him the deadly drink, for she had at last fallen madly
in love, he said:
“Well, where is the poison? Don’t keep me waiting! Quick, that I may
drink!”
And when she heard that she was indeed terrified, thinking, “This man
knows all my secret.” But as she hesitated, he took the deadly cup and
drained it to the last drop. “And now,” she thought, “I am saved.” But
the Iron Man said with scorn:
“Do you call _that_ stuff poison? Why, it would hardly kill a mouse.
Give me stronger, I say—stronger! I live on poison, and the stronger it
is the better I like it.”
Hearing this, the Princess felt from head to foot as if her blood were
all turned to ice, for now she knew that she was lost, and her punishment
at hand.
“And now,” said the Iron Man, “since all the poisoning and treachery and
putting away of young gentlemen is at an end, you must come with me;” and
with this he took her under his left arm and went forth.
At her screams all her retainers came armed, and after them twenty
soldiers, but all were of no avail against such an enemy, whom they could
neither pierce with steel nor restrain by strength; and escaping with
her, he mounted a black steed, which a Moor was holding outside, and with
his victim flew over the land till they came to a dark and savage place
in the mountains. And here he bore her into a vast cavern, where many
men were seated round a table, and as she looked she saw that they were
all the lovers whom she had put to death. Then they all cried:
“_Ecco la nostra moglie_! Behold our wife! Behold our Drusiana!”
And another said:
“Let us give her to drink, and let us drink to her!”
And they gave her a full goblet, which she could not help swallowing, and
the wine was like fire, the fire of hell itself in all her veins. The
men assembled round burst into laughter at seeing her suffering, and one
shouted:
“Drink, Princess, drink!
Thou feelest the same fire,
Only in greater measure,
Hotter, wilder and fiercer,
Which thou didst feel before,
When thy blood boiled with passion,
And with love of secret murder;
Then thou didst feel it a little,
Now thou shalt feel it greatly;
Once it ran drop by drop,
Now in full goblets and frequent.”
Then another gave her a glass of wine which she could not help
swallowing, and it was cold, and her blood again grew cold as ice, and
she shivered in an agony of freezing. And so it went on, everyone giving
her first the scalding hot wine and then the cold, while all sang in
chorus:
“We give thee again in thy heart
What thou didst give to us:
The heat of love which burned in us,
Burned in us and in thee,
And the cold of desire when satisfied.
Thou hadst no mercy on us:
We have as little for thee.”
* * * * *
The connection of Virgil with the classic Talus, or Iron Man, and so many
other ancient legends, as shown in these which I have gathered, renders
the more striking the assertion that “after the sixteenth century the
Vergilian legends disappear, and become known only to scholars,” as
worded by E. F. M. Beneche in his translation of Comparetti’s work. The
truth is, that as the age of credulity and mere marvels passed away among
the higher classes, the learned ceased to collect or take an interest in
heaping up “wonders upon wonders.” But the people went on telling and
making tales about Virgil, just as they had always done. And the full
proof that there was not a soul who for centuries took the least interest
in folklore or popular tradition in Central and Northern Italy is to be
found in the fact that, while such material _abounds_ in the English,
French, and especially German literature of later ages, there is hardly a
trace of it in a single Roman or Tuscan writer till of late years. Even
at the present day there is small search or seeking in Northern Italy for
the rich treasures of old Roman tradition which still exist among the
people.