In the first act of Goethe’s tragedy we are introduced to Faust, who is sitting in his lofty-arched Gothic chamber or laboratory, his desk piled high with the works of noted writers on magic and astrology.
“And this one Book of Mystery
From Nostradamus’ very hand,
Is’t not sufficient company?”
Nostradamus, the famous astrologer, was born at St. Remy, in Provence, in the year 1503. His real name was Michel de Notre Dame. For some time he practised as a physician, but finally devoted himself to astrology, and published in 1555 a collection of prophecies in rhymed quatrains, entitled Les Prophecies de Michel Nostradamus, which created an immediate sensation, and found many believers, especially as the death of Henry II. of France seemed to verify one of his mystical predictions. He was appointed physician to Charles IX., and continued the publication of his prophecies, asserting, however, that the study of the planetary aspects was not alone sufficient, but that the gift of second sight, which God grants only to a few chosen persons, is also necessary.
He died in the year 1566.
In the following lines allusion is made to two popular forms of divination.
“Citizen’s Daughter. Come, Agatha! I shun the witch’s sight
Before folks, lest there be misgiving!
’Tis true, she showed me, on Saint Andrew’s Night,
My future sweetheart, just as he were living.
“The Other. She showed me mine, in crystal clear,
With several wild young blades, a soldier-lover”.
St. Andrew’s Night is celebrated in some parts of Germany by forms of divination very similar to those which are practised in Scotland on Hallow E’en. The maidens believe that by calling upon St. Andrew, undressed, before getting into bed, their future sweetheart will appear to them in a dream. Another charm is practised by pouring melted lead through the wards of a key, wherein there is the form of a cross, into a basin of water brought between eleven o’clock and midnight: the cooling lead will then take the form of tools which indicate the trade of the destined lover.
Crystal gazing, which we have described in a previous chapter, was also a common method of foretelling future events, and young maidens were supposed to be specially successful in its practise.
Faust’s description of the preparation of a panacea is a good illustration of the fantastic language employed by the alchemists:—
“Who, in his dusky work-shop bending,
With proved adepts in company,
Made, from his recipes unending,
Opposing substances agree.
There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,
Within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused,
And both, tormented then by flame unsparing,
By turns in either bridal chamber housed.
If then appeared, with colours splendid,
The young Queen in her crystal shell,
This was the medicine—the patient’s woes soon ended,
And none demanded—who got well?”