“Now to signify destruction and death they paint a _mouse_. For it
gnaweth all things, and works ruin.”—HORI APOLLI: _Hieroglyphica_;
_Rome_, 1606.
There once lived in Florence a young gentleman—_un gran signore_—who
wedded a beautiful young lady to whom he was passionately attached, as
she indeed was for a time to him. But “fickle and fair is nothing rare,”
and it came to pass that before long she gave her love again to an
intimate friend of her husband. And the latter did not indeed perceive
the cause, but he was much grieved at the indifference to him which his
wife began to show.
Then the wife began to tell her lover how her husband had scolded her for
her neglect, and how much afraid she was lest their intrigue would be
discovered, and that she was so uneasy that she was ready to poison her
spouse “if she could only get rid of him!”
The lover replied that there were many ways to get rid of a man without
really killing him, for that a violent death would lead to suspicion,
inquiry, scandal, and perhaps legal punishment. And then he hinted that
a better method would be to consult a witch.
The lady lost no time in running to one, to whom she told her whole
story, and what she wanted, and as she began by paying a large fee, the
sorceress promised she should have her wish.
Then the witch prepared with magic skill a flask of water, and a powder.
The water she gave to the wife, and bade her sprinkle it over her
husband’s clothes. But she changed herself into a mouse, and having been
carried to the bedroom which the married couple occupied, she gnawed a
hole in the mattress, and crawling in, dragged after her the bag, and so
remained hidden.
When the husband went to bed, there came over him an utter weakness and
sickness, so that he lay in pain as if dead, and this grew worse day by
day. His parents in vain called in the first physicians, and every
remedy was resorted to without result.
Then Virgilio, who knew much and suspected all the rest of this affair,
was angry that so vile a woman and her gallant should inflict such
torture on an excellent and innocent man, and resolved to have a hand in
the affair.
Therewith he dressed himself as a _medico_, or doctor, from some distant
land, saying that he had heard of this extraordinary case of illness, and
would like to see the sufferer. To which the parents replied that he was
welcome to do so, since all the professors of medicine in Florence could
make nothing of it.
The doctor looked steadily for some time at the patient, who appeared to
be in such utter prostration and misery as might have moved the hardest
heart. By him sat his wife, pretending to weep, but counting to herself
with pleasure the time which would pass before her husband should
die—giving now and then a suspicious glance at the new-comer.
Then Virgilio said to the wife:
“Signora, I beg you to leave the room for a while. I must be alone with
this man!”
Whereupon she, with a great show of tears and passion, declared she would
not leave the room, because her husband might die at any minute, and she
could never forgive herself were she to be absent, and so on. To which
Virgilio angrily replied, that she might depart in peace, with the
assurance that her husband would be cured. So she went out, cursing him
in her heart, if there was a chance that he could do as he declared.
Then Virgilio took a mirror which he had brought with him, and placing it
before the eyes of the invalid, bade him look at it as steadily and as
long as he could. The young man did so, and then said, as if in despair:
“For me there is no remedy, O doctor, for what you show me is worse than
my disorder, as I supposed it to be. Truly I see death, and not myself.”
“Courage!” replied Virgilio. “You shall be cured.”
“Cure me,” he answered, “and you shall have all that I possess.”
“Nay, I will cure you first,” said Virgilio, “and then settle on easier
terms.”
The patient looked steadily at the mirror. Virgilio rapped thrice with a
wand, when there suddenly leaped from the bed a mouse, which uttered
three horrible, piercing screams. The doctor bade the invalid continue
to look steadily at himself in the mirror, and for his life not to cease
doing so. Without turning round, the doctor ordered the mouse to enter
the bed and lick up and bring away with her on her tongue all the water
which the wife had sprinkled on the clothes. And this done, he bade her
bring again out of the bed all the powder which she had placed there.
Which being effected, he ordered the mouse to make of it a pellet, and
devour it; but here she resisted, for to do that meant death to her and a
cure to the invalid.
But the doctor was inflexible, and she had to obey. Nor had she begun to
eat it before he bade the husband rise, which he did, feeling perfectly
recovered, though much confused at such a sudden change.
Then Virgilio ordered the mouse to mount the bed, and lo! she changed to
a woman, for she was, of course, the witch who had done all this devil’s
work. And the sorceress bade them call parents and wife and all. And
when they came the witch said:
“Evil my life has been, and evil will be the death which in a few minutes
will come to me; yet am I not so evil as this woman, who would have
killed by the worst suffering the husband who loved her. For hell hath
many who are bad, but the worst are they who return evil for good. And
he who hath ended this thing by his power is the great Virgilio, who is
the lord of magic in all this land.”
Then she told, step by step, how the wife had turned her heart from her
husband, almost as soon as she was married, and wished to kill him, and
had paid her to bewitch him. Then Virgilio opened the window and the
witch indeed died, or it was the last seen of her, for with a horrible
howl she vanished in the night, flying away.
The husband recovered, and would have given Virgilio all his wealth, but
he would accept nothing but the young man’s friendship. And the guilty
wife was imprisoned for life in a castle, far away in the mountains and
alone.
* * * * *
Virgil appears as a _physician_ so distinctly in this and other tales as
to induce the question whether he had not, quite apart from his
reputation as poet and magician, some fame as professor of the healing
art. And in fact, as I have shown in the legend of Virgil and the Spirit
of Mirth, he on one occasion at least is, by Pæonia, identified with
Esculapius. The latter is described as having “a countenance bright with
joy and serenity,” and being very benevolent and genial—wherein he agrees
with the poet. The God of Medicine, it is expressly stated, used “sweet
incantations,” or poetical spells, which is also significant. He was
also associated with Apollo and the Muses, as in the temple of Messina.
The author of the great “Dizionario Storico Mitologico” (1824) plainly
declares that “Esculapius is another form of Apollo, in whom poetry and
medicine were combined. In the temple devoted to him in Sycione,
Esculapius is associated with Diana. In a Roman bas-relief he appears
with the Three Graces; in one of these legends Virgil is associated with
four Venuses.” Making every allowance, it must be admitted that,
comparing all that is known of the God of Medicine with what appears in
these legends of the Mantuan bard, there is a remarkable general likeness
between the two. Virgil is also, here and there, curiously identified
with the serpent and the staff, which were the symbols of Esculapius;
and, as I have before noted, Buddha, who had so much in common with
Virgil, was in his first incarnation a physician.