Legends of Florence: Collected from the People, First Series

by Charles Godfrey Leland

Byron’s poem is entirely based on sorcery, and is intended to set forth the tremendous mental struggles of a

mind which has risen above mankind with supernatural power, which assails him with remorse. In the first place he simply goes to sleep; in the grand finale he resists, like Don Juan, or, as the saying is, “dies game”—“only this, and nothing more”—leaving all idea of an end, object, moral, or system, entirely in the dark. “Manfred” is merely dramatic for the sake of stage effect, and only excellent in impressing us with the artistic skill of the author. Its key is art for the sake of art, and effect on anybody, no matter who. Within this limit it is most admirable.

In both the Italian and English poems the one persecuted makes his strong point of departure from the discovery or knowledge that the persecuted is not one whom he has injured, but simply a mocking and tormenting sprite. Thus the former text declares that when he finds he is pursued simply by Intialo, the shadow, which we may here translate “his own imagination,” he rallies with a tremendous counter-curse in which far more is meant than meets the eye. The grand mission of the magus or sorcerer in all the occult lore of all antiquity, whether he appear as Buddha or any other man of men, is to conquer all enemies by tremendous power won by penance or by iron will. A favourite means of tormenting the enemy or fiend is to awaken the conscience of the magician, or, what is the same thing, to tempt him to sin, as Satan did Christ. But even conscience loses its power when we feel that the foe is exaggerating our sins, and only urging them for torment’s sake, and especially when these sins are of a kind which from a certain standpoint or code, are not sins at all.

And here we are brought to a subject so strange and witch-like that it is difficult to discuss or make clear. It is evident enough in “Manfred” that the great crime was the hero’s forbidden love for his sister Astarte. This it is which crushes him. But it does not appear from the

Italian (save to those deeply learned in the darker secrets of sorcery) why or how it is that the one persecuted so suddenly revives and defies the spirit, turning, as it were, his own power against him. In explaining this, I do not in the least conjecture, guess, or infer anything; I give the explanation as it was understood by the narrator, and as confirmed by other legends and traditions. It is this:

Michelet, in La Sorciére, which amid much lunacy or folly contains many truths and ingenious perceptions, has explained that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages was a kind of mad despairing revolt against the wrongs of society, of feudalism, and the Church. It was in very truth the precursor of Protestantism. Under the name of religion conscience had been abused, and artificial sins, dooming to hell, been created out of every trifle, and out of almost every form of natural instincts. The reaction from this (which was a kind of nihilism or anarchy), was to declare the antithetic excess of free will. One of the forms of this revolt was the belief that the greatest sorcerers were born (ex filio et matre) from the nearest relations, and that to dare and violate all such ties was to conquer by daring will the greatest power. It was the strongest defiance of the morality taught by the Church, therefore one of the highest qualifications for an iron-willed magician. It is specially pointed out in the legend of Diana that she began by such a sin, and so came to be queen of the witches; and the same idea of entire emancipation or illumination, or freedom from all ties, is the first step to the absolute free will which constitutes the very basis of all magic. This, which is repugnant to humanity, was actually exalted by the Persian Magi to a duty or religious principle, and it was the same in Egypt as regarded “first families.” The sorcerer pursued by Intialo bases all his power to resist on the mere fact that he is beloved by a beautiful witch. This is the Astarte of the

Italian drama, or a sister—the terrible tie which shows that a man is above conscience, and free from all fear of the powers that be, whether of earth or air. By it his triumph is complete. He surmounts the accusation of being without morals by utterly denying their existence from a higher or illuminated point of view. The magus claims to rank with the gods, and if a divinity creates mankind as his children, and then has a child by a woman, he is in the same state as the sorcerer, according to wizards.

If any reproach attaches to the employment of such an element in poetry, then Byron and Shelley are far more to blame than the Italian witch-poet, who veiled his allusion with much greater care than they did, and who had the vast excuse of sincere belief, while their highest aim was mere art. The wizard-poet has his heart in this faith, as in a religion, and he is one with his hero. Manfred is at best only a broken-down magician who presents a few boldly dramatic daring traits—the Italian sorcerer, who is far more defiant and fearless, conquers. “I am more malignant than thou art,” is a terrible utterance; so is the tone of affected pity for the baffled tormentor, in which we detect a shade of sarcasm based on overwhelming triumph. This feeling, be it observed, progresses, crescendo forte, gradually and very artistically, from the first verse to the last. Intialo has threatened to make the victim a sorry cur who comes at a call; the sorcerer replies that he will make “a swine’s snout” of Intialo. Finally, he dares the fiend to meet him at midnight at the great Witches’ Sabbat, at the dread walnut-tree of Benevento. Here the threats reach an ingenious and terrible climax, though the form in which they are expressed is only quite clear to the initiated. The sorcerer says, “When thou thinkest that thou see’st my shadow thou wilt behold thine own,” or in other words, “You who have sought to torment me by a shadow shall

yourself be mocked by finding that you are only mine.” This climax of daring the fiend to meet him at Benevento, at the tremendous and terrible rendezvous of all the devils, witches, and sorcerers, and then and there trying conclusions with him in delusion and magic, or a strife of shadows, while leaning against the awful tree itself, which is the central point of the Italian Domdaniel, is magnificently imagined.

In Goethe’s “Faust,” as in Byron’s “Manfred,” the hero is a magician, but he is not in either true to the name or character. The great magus of early ages, even like the black Voodoo of America, had it clearly before him all the time that his mission or business, above all things, was to develop an indomitable will superior to that of men or spirits. Every point is gained by force, or by will and penance. In real sorcery there is no such thing as a pact with a devil, and becoming his slave after a time. This is a purely later-Roman invention, a result of the adoption of the mixture of Jewish monotheism and Persian dualism, which formed the Catholic Church. In Goethe’s “Faust” we have the greatest weakness, and an extreme confusion of character. The conclusion of the tale is contradictory or absurd, and the difficulty is solved with the aid of a Deus ex machina. The hero is a sorcerer, and there is not a trace of true sorcery or magianism or tremendous will and work in the whole drama. Beautiful things are said and done, but, take it for all in all, it is a grand promenade which leads to nothing. [251]