“To the service of Humanity, my son,” responded Apollo.
DUKE VIRGIL
I
The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged the suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a Podestà of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a Papal Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators, consuls, prætors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, and ere the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in the enjoyment of perfect anarchy.
An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were forbidden to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything new.
“Why not consult Manto, the alchemist’s daughter, our prophetess, our Sibyl?” the young Benedetto asked at last.
“Why not?” repeated Eustachio, an elderly man.
“Why not, indeed?” interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years.
All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto’s lover; Eustachio her father’s friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain private interviews, the two elder with Manto’s father, the youth with Manto herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist’s influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand. The youth had just risen from his knees, pleading with her, and drawing glowing pictures of their felicity when he should be Duke and she Duchess.
She answered, “Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead.”