All things he learned: how to resist all sorceries and evil spells; he could call the eagle down from the sky, and the fish from the sea; but one thing he did not learn from his master.
One day Virgil gave him a book wherein was the charm against the Song of the Siren, the words which protect him who knows them against the music of the Voice. But two leaves stuck together like one, so that Minuzzolo skipped two pages, and never knew it.
Virgil had gone forth, and Minuzzolo, seated in a hut in the forest where they lived, began to sing. Then he heard in the wood a girl’s voice, which seemed to come from a torrent, singing in answer; and it was so sweet that all his soul and senses were captured, he forgot all duty and desire, his master and everything, all in a mad yearning to follow the sound. So he went on and on, led by the song; day and night were unnoticed by him. The Voice went with the torrent, he followed it to a river, and the river to the sea, where the waves rolled high in foam and fog; he followed the song, it went deep into the sea, but he gave no heed, but went ever on.
Then he found himself in a very beautiful but extremely strange old city—a city like a dream of an ancient age. And as eve came on, the youth asked of this and that person where he could pass the night, and all said that they knew of no place, for into that city no strangers ever came. However, at last one said to him: “I know where there dwells a witch, and she often hath strange guests; perhaps she will give thee shelter.”
“I will go to her,” replied Minuzzolo.
“Better not,” was the reply. “I did but jest, and I would be sorry if so fair a youth should be devoured by some monster.” [34]
“Little fear of that have I,” replied the young magician. “He who has harmed no one need fear none, and in the name of my Master I am safe.”
So he went to the house and knocked, and there came to his call an old woman of such unearthly ugliness, that Minuzzolo saw at once that she was a sorceress. So when she asked what he wanted, he replied:
“In the name of him whom all
Like thee obey, and heed his call,
And tremble at his lightest word,
Virgil, my master and thy lord,
I bid thee give me food and rest,
Whate’er thou canst and of the best!”