I
Grievous is the lot of the child, more especially of the female child, who is doomed from the tenderest infancy to lack the blessing of a mother’s care.
Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied knots in the tails of vipers? That her father, the magician Locuste, ever sedulous and affectionate, fed her with spoonsful of the honeyed froth that gathers under the tongues of asps? That as she grew older and craved a more nutritious diet, she partook, at first in infinitesimal doses, but in ever increasing quantities, of arsenic, strychnine, opium, and prussic acid? That at last having attained the flower of youth, she drank habitually from vessels of gold, for her favourite beverages were so corrosive that no other substance could resist their solvent properties?
Gradually accustomed to this strange regimen, she had thriven on it marvellously, and was without a peer for beauty, sense, and goodness. Her father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up had differed in so material a respect from that of other young people.
“Father,” said she one day, bringing him a book she had been perusing, “what strange follies learned men will pen with gravity! or is it rather that none can set bounds to the licence of romancers? These dear serpents, my friends and playfellows, this henbane and antimony, the nourishment of my health and vigour—that any one should write of these as pernicious, deadly, and fatal to existence! Is it error or malignity? or but the wanton freak of an idle imagination?”
“My child,” answered the magician, “it is fit that thou shouldst now learn what hath hitherto been concealed from thee, and with this object I left this treatise in thy way. It speaks truth. Thou hast been nurtured from thy infancy on substances endowed with lethal properties, commonly called poisons. Thy entire frame is impregnated thereby, and, although thou thyself art in the fullest enjoyment of health, thy kiss would be fatal to any one not, like thy father, fortified by a course of antidotes. Now hear the reason. I bear a deadly grudge to the king of this land. He indeed hath not injured me; but his father slew my father, wherefore it is meet that I should slay that ancestor’s son’s son. I have therefore nurtured thee from thy infancy on the deadliest poisons, until thou art a walking vial of pestilence. The young prince shall unseal thee, to his destruction and thy unspeakable advantage. Go to the great city; thou art beautiful as the day; he is young, handsome, and amorous; he will infallibly fall in love with thee. Do thou submit to his caresses, he will perish miserably; thou (such is the charm) ransomed by the kiss of love, wilt become wholesome and innocuous as thy fellows, preserving only thy knowledge of poisons, always useful, in the present state of society invaluable. Thou wilt therefore next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory letters from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning.”
“Father,” said Mithridata, “either I shall love this young prince, or I shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his death.”
“Not even in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to thee by this event?”
“Not even for that consideration.”
“O these daughters!” exclaimed the old man. “We bring them up tenderly, we exhaust all our science for the improvement of their minds and bodies, we set our choicest hopes upon them, and entrust them with the fulfilment of our most cherished aspirations; and when all is done, they will not so much as commit a murder to please us! Miserable ingrate, receive the just requital of thy selfish disobedience!”
“O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!”
“I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors.”
And he did.