THE VAMPIRE IN LITERATURE
The subject of vampirism does not appear to have attracted litterateurs
greatly. True, there are the operas of Palma, Hart, Marschner, and von
Lindpainter; and Philostratus and Phlegon of Tralles have discoursed upon
the phenomena. There are not, however, many works of fiction based upon
the topic, or many poems in which the subject is introduced. There is
an Anglo-Saxon poem with the title _A Vampyre of the Fens_, and a long,
wearisome novel, full of gruesome details, entitled _Varney the Vampire_.
Among modern authors, Mr Bram Stoker has made the vampire the foundation
of his exciting romance _Dracula_; but mention of these works almost
exhausts the references to separate works upon the subject.
Nor are the references to vampires and vampirism in the ancient Greek
authors more numerous. The phantom of Achilles is represented by
Euripides (_Hec._, 109, 599) as appearing on his tomb clad in golden
armour and appeased by the sacrifice of a young virgin, whose blood he
drank. Œdipus also in Sophocles (_Œd. Col._, 621), when foretelling a
defeat which the Thebans would sustain near his tomb, declares that his
cold, dead body will drink their warm blood. Human victims were offered
at the funeral pyre of Patroclus in the _Iliad_ (vol. i.).
Though human beings are not sacrificed in the _Odyssey_, yet the blood
of slaughtered sheep was eagerly lapped up by the ghosts consulted
by Odysseus (xi. 45, 48, 95, 96, 153, etc.). A sheep was also to be
sacrificed at the tombs of mortals, and its blood was supposed to be an
offering acceptable to the departed spirit.
Pausanias, Strabo, Ælian, and Suidas relate the legend of Ulysses in
his wanderings coming to the town of Temesa, in Italy, where one of his
associates was stoned to death by the townsmen for having ravished a
virgin. His ghost forthwith haunted the inhabitants, and caused them
such annoyance that many were thinking seriously of leaving the town
when they were told by Apollo’s oracle that to appease him they must
build the hero a temple, and sacrifice to him yearly the most beautiful
virgin they had among them. The temple was accordingly raised: access
to the sacred enclosure was prohibited to all except the priests, on
penalty of death. An engraving of the evil spirit that is alleged to have
infested Temesa is given on page 18 of Beaumont’s _Treatise on Spirits_
(ed. 1705).
Philostratus, in his _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_ (iv. 25, p. 165), says
that the long intercourse which took place between a female spectre and
the Corinthian Menippus was but a prelude to the feast of flesh and blood
in which she meant to revel after their marriage.
Some have described the Hebrew _lilith_ as a vampire, but the _Jewish
Encyclopædia_ states that: “There is nothing in the Talmud to indicate
that the _lilith_ was a vampire.” She was regarded as a nocturnal demon,
flying about in the form of a night-owl, and stealing children, and was
held to have permission to kill all children sinfully begotten, even
from a lawful wife. The _lilith_ is held to have the same signification
as the Greek _strix_ and _lamiæ_, who were sorceresses or magicians,
seeking to put to death new-born children. The ancient Greeks believed
that these _lamiæ_ devoured children, or sucked away all their blood
until they died. Euripides and the scholiast of Aristophanes mention the
_lilith_ as a dangerous monster, the enemy of mortals; and Ovid describes
the _strigæ_ as dangerous birds, which fly by night and seek for infants
to devour them and nourish themselves with their blood. The _aluka_ of
Proverbs xxx. 15 is more akin to the vampire. It is a blood-sucking,
insatiable monster; the word is synonymous with _algul_, the well-known
demon of the Arabian popular stories, “the man-devouring demon of the
waste,” known as the ghoul or goule in the translated edition of the
_Arabian Nights_.
Goethe, in his ballad _The Bride of Corinth_, describes how a young
Athenian visits a friend of his father, to whose daughter he had been
betrothed, and is disturbed at midnight by the appearance of the vampire
spectre of her whom death has prevented from becoming his bride, and
who, when detected, says:—
From my grave to wander I am forc’d,
Still to seek The Good’s long-sever’d link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,
And the life-blood of his heart to drink;
When his race is run,
I must hasten on,
And the young must ’neath my vengeance sink.
There is one scant reference to the subject in Shelley’s poems. Byron, in
his poem _The Giaour_, has the following passage:—
But first on earth as vampire sent
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race.
Dryden relates:—
Lo, in my walks where wicked elves have been,
The learning of the parish now is seen—
From fiends and imps he sets the village free,
There haunts not any incubus but he:
The maids and women need no danger fear
To walk by night and sanctity so near.
Scott, in _Rokeby_, has the following lines:—
For like the bat of Indian brakes,
Her pinions fan the wound she makes,
And soothing thus the dreamer’s pains,
She drinks the life-blood from the veins.
The following legend is related in vol. ii. of _Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border_, and is referred to in a footnote to Southey’s _Thalaba
the Destroyer_ (p. 108, ed. 1814):—
In the year 1058 a young man of noble birth had been married in Rome,
and during the period of his nuptial feast, having gone with his
companions to play at ball, he put his marriage ring on the finger of a
broken statue of Venus in the area, to remain while he was engaged in
recreation. Desisting from the exercise, he found the finger on which
he had put his ring contracted firmly against the palm, and attempted
in vain either to break or disengage the ring. He concealed the
circumstances from his companions, and returned at night with a servant,
when he found the finger extended and the ring gone. He dissembled the
loss and returned to his wife; but when he attempted to embrace her he
found himself prevented by something dark and dense, which was tangible
if not visible, interposing between them; and he heard a voice saying:
“Embrace me! for I am Venus, whom this day you wedded, and I will not
restore your ring.” As this was constantly repeated, he consulted
his relatives, who had recourse to Palumbus, the priest, skilled in
necromancy. He directed the young man to go at a certain hour of the
night to a spot among the ruins of ancient Rome where four roads meet,
and wait silently till he saw a company pass by, and then, without
uttering a word, to deliver a letter which he gave him to a majestic
being who rode in a chariot after the rest of the company. The young man
did as he was directed, and saw the company of all ages, classes and
ranks, on horse and on foot, some joyful and others sad, pass along;
among whom he distinguished a woman in a meretricious dress, who, from
the tenuity of her garments, seemed almost naked. She rode on a mule;
her long hair, which flowed over her shoulders, was bound with a golden
fillet; and in her hand was a golden rod with which she directed her
mule. In the close of the procession a tall, majestic figure appeared
in a chariot adorned with emeralds and pearls, who fiercely asked the
young man what he did there. He presented the letter in silence, which
the demon dared not refuse. As soon as he had read, lifting up his hands
to heaven, he exclaimed: “Almighty God! how long wilt Thou endure the
iniquities of the sorcerer Palumbus!” and immediately despatched some of
his attendants, who, with much difficulty, extorted the ring from Venus
and restored it to its owner, whose infernal banns were thus dissolved.
This legend was made the foundation of Liddell’s poem, _The Vampire
Bride_.
Dion Boucicault wrote and produced a vampire play entitled _The Phantom_,
the scene of which was laid in the ruins of Raby Castle. Anyone remaining
in these ruins for one night met with certain death before the morning.
The only sign of violence to be found was a wound on the right side of
the throat, but no blood was to be seen. The face of the victim was white
and the gaze fixed, as though the person had died from fright.
In April 1819 a story entitled “The Vampyre” appeared in _Colburn’s New
Monthly Magazine_, which was attributed to Lord Byron, but which was
really from the pen of Dr John William Polidori (uncle of William Michael
Rossetti), who was for a time Lord Byron’s travelling physician. The work
was also published separately, but the authorship was denied by Lord
Byron. Polidori immediately claimed responsibility for the work, and the
correspondence and statement of facts published in Rossetti’s _Diary of
Doctor John William Polydori_ show how the mistake occurred.
The following poem appears in the _Life of James Clerk Maxwell_, by Lewis
Campbell and William Garnett, and was written by Maxwell in 1845, when he
was fourteen years of age:—
THE VAMPYRE
COMPYLT INTO MEETER BY JAMES CLERK MAXWELL
Thair is a knichte rydis through the wood,
And a douchty knichte is hee.
And sure hee is on a message sent,
He rydis sae hastilie.
Hee passit the aik, and hee passit the birk,
And hee passit monie a tre,
Bot plesant to him was the saugh sae slim,
For beneath it hee did see
The boniest ladye that ever hee saw,
Scho was sae schyn and fair.
And thair scho sat, beneath the saugh,
Kaiming hir gowden hair.
And then the knichte—“Oh ladye brichte,
What chance has broucht you here?
But say the word, and ye schall gang
Back to your kindred dear.”
Then up and spok the ladye fair—
“I have nae friends or kin,
Bot in a little boat I live,
Amidst the waves’ loud din.”
Then answered thus the douchty knichte—
“I’ll follow you through all,
For gin ye bee in a littel boat,
The world to it seemis small.”
They goed through the wood, and through the wood,
To the end of the wood they came:
And when they came to the end of the wood
They saw the salt sea faem.
And then they saw the wee, wee boat,
That daunced on the top of the wave,
And first got in the ladye fair,
And then the knichte sae brave.
They got into the wee, wee boat,
And rowed wi’ a’ their micht;
When the knichte sae brave, he turnit about,
And lookit at the ladye bricht;
He lookit at her bonnie cheik,
And hee lookit at hir twa bricht eyne,
Bot hir rosie cheik growe ghaistly pale,
And schoe seymit as scho deid had been.
The fause, fause knichte growe pale wi’ frichte,
And his hair rose up on end,
For gane-by days cam to his mynde,
And his former luve he kenned.
Then spake the ladye—“Thou, fause knichte,
Hast done to me much ill,
Thou didst forsake me long ago,
Bot I am constant still;
For though I ligg in the woods sae cald,
At rest I canna bee
Until I sucks the gude lyfe blude
Of the man that gart me dee.”
Hee saw hir lipps were wet wi’ blude,
And hee saw hir lufelesse eyne,
And loud hee cry’d, “Get frae my syde,
Thou vampyr corps encleane!”
Bot no, hee is in hir magic boat,
And on the wyde, wyde sea;
And the vampyr suckis his gude lyfe blude,
Sho suckis hym till hee dee.
So now beware, whoe’er you are,
That walkis in this lone wood:
Beware of that deceitfull spright,
The ghaist that suckis the blude.
Mr Reginald Hodder, in _The Vampire_ (William Rider & Son, Ltd.), has
developed a theory which is a novel one in the annals of vampirism. The
principal character is a living woman, a member of a secret sisterhood,
who is forced to exercise her powers as a vampire to prevent loss of
vitality. This power, however, is exercised through the medium of a
metallic talisman, and the main thread of the story turns on the struggle
for the possession of this talisman. It is wrested ultimately from the
hands of those who would use it for malignant purposes, but its recovery
is only accomplished by means of a number of extraordinary—though who
would dare say impossible?—occult phenomena.