In the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the incarnation of the Son of
God, a few days before the enemies of the Cross entered the city of Helena and
the great Constantine, it was given to me, Brother Marbodius, an unworthy
monk, to see and to hear what none had hitherto seen or heard. I have composed
a faithful narrative of those things so that their memory may not perish with
me, for man's time is short.
On the first day of May in the aforesaid year, at the hour of vespers, I was
seated in the Abbey of Corrigan on a stone in the cloisters and, as my custom
was, I read the verses of the poet whom I love best of all, Virgil, who has
sung of the labours: of the field, of shepherds, and of heroes. Evening was
hanging its purple folds from the arches of the cloisters and in a voice of
emotion I was murmuring the verses which describe how Dido, the Phoenician
queen, wanders with her ever-bleeding wound beneath the myrtles of hell. At
that moment Brother Hilary happened to pass by, followed by Brother Jacinth,
the porter.
Brought up in the barbarous ages before the resurrection of the Muses, Brother
Hilary has not been initiated into the wisdom of the ancients; nevertheless,
the poetry of the Mantuan has, like a subtle torch, shed some gleams of light
into his understanding.
"Brother Marbodius," he asked me, "do those verses that you utter with
swelling breast and sparkling eyes--do they belong to that great 'Aeneid' from
which morning or evening your glances are never withheld?"
I answered that I was reading in Virgil how the son of Anchises perceived Dido
like a moon behind the foliage.*
* The text runs
. . .qualem primo qui syrgere mense
Aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam.
Brother Marbodius, by a strange misunderstanding, substitutes an entirely
different image for the one created by the poet.
"Brother Marbodius," he replied, "I am certain that on all occasions Virgil
gives expression to wise maxims and profound thoughts. But the songs that he
modulates on his Syracusan flute hold such a lofty meaning and such exalted
doctrine that I am continually puzzled by them."
"Take care, father," cried Brother Jacinth, in an agitated voice. "Virgil was
a magician who wrought marvels by the help of demons. It is thus he pierced
through a mountain near Naples and fashioned a bronze horse that had power to
heal all the diseases of horses. He was a necromancer, and there is still
shown, in a certain town in Italy, the mirror in which he made the dead
appear. And yet a woman deceived this great sorcerer. A Neapolitan courtesan
invited him to hoist himself up to her window in the basket that was used to
bring the provisions, and she left him all night suspended between two
storeys."
Brother Hilary did not appear to hear these observations.
"Virgil is a prophet," he replied, "and a prophet who leaves far behind him
the sibyls with their sacred verses as well as the daughter of King Priam, and
that great diviner of future things, Plato of Athens. You will find in the
fourth of his Syracusan cantos the birth of our Lord foretold in a lancune
that seems of heaven rather than of earth.* In the time of my early studies,
when I read for the first time JAM REDIT ET VIRGO, I felt myself bathed in an
infinite delight, but I immediately experienced intense grief at the thought
that, for ever deprived of the presence of God, the author of this prophetic
verse, the noblest that has come from human lips, was pining among the heathen
in eternal darkness. This cruel thought did not leave me. It pursued me even
in my studies, my prayers, my meditations, and my ascetic labours. Thinkin
that Virgil was deprived of the sight of God and that possibly he might even
be suffering the fate of the reprobate in hell, I could neither enjoy peace
nor rest, and I went so far as to exclaim several times a day with my arms
outstretched to heaven:
" 'Reveal to me, O Lord, the lot thou hast assigned to him who sang on earth
as the angels sing in heaven!'
*Three centuries before the epoch in which our Marbodius lived the words--
Maro, vates gentilium
Da Christo testimonium
Were sung in the churches on Christmas Day.
"After some years my anguish ceased when I read in an old book that the great
apostle St. Paul, who called the Gentiles into the Church of Christ, went to
Naples and sanctified with his tears the tomb of the prince of poets.* This
was some ground for believing that Virgil, like the Emperor Trajan, was
admitted to Paradise because even in error he had a presentiment of the truth.
We are not compelled to believe it, but I can easily persuade myself that it
is true."
*Ad maronis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Piae rorem lacrymae.
Quem te, intuit, reddidissem,
Si te vivum invenissem
Poetarum maxime!
Having thus spoken, old Hilary wished me the peace of a holy night and went
away with Brother Jacinth.
I resumed the delightful study of my poet. Book in hand, I meditated upon the
way in which those whom Love destroys with its cruel malady wander through the
secret paths in the depth of the myrtle forest, and, as I meditated, the
quivering reflections of the stars came and mingled with those of the leafless
eglantines in the waters of the cloister fountain. Suddenly the lights and the
perfumes and the stillness of the sky were overwhelmed, a fierce Northwind
charged with storm and darkness burst roaring upon me. It lifted me up and
carried me like a wisp of straw over fields, cities, rivers, and mountains,
and through the midst of thunder-clouds, during a long night composed of a
whole series of nights and days. And when, after this prolonged and cruel
rage, the hurricane was at last stilled, I found myself far from my native
land at the bottom of a valley bordered by cypress trees. Then a woman of wild
beauty, trailing long garments behind her, approached me. She placed her left
hand on my shoulder, and, pointing her right arm to an oak with thick foliage:
"Look!" said she to me.
Immediately I recognised the Sibyl who guards the sacred wood of Avernus, and
I discerned the fair Proserpine's beautiful golden twig amongst the tufted
boughs of the tree to which her finger pointed.
"O prophetic Virgin," I exclaimed, "thou hast comprehended my desire and thou
hast satisfied it in this way. Thou hast revealed to me the tree that bears
the shining twig without which none can enter alive into the dwelling-place of
the dead. And in truth, eagerly did I long to converse with the shade of
Virgil."
Having said this, I snatched the golden branch from its ancient trunk and I
advanced without fear into the smoking gulf that leads to the miry banks of
the Styx, upon which the shades are tossed about like dead leaves. At sight of
the branch dedicated to Proserpine, Charon took me in his bark, which groaned
beneath my weight, and I alighted on the shores of the dead, and was greeted
by the mute baying of the threefold Cerberus. I pretended to throw the shade
of a stone at him, and the vain monster fled into his cave. There, amidst the
rushes, wandered the souls of those children whose eyes had but opened and
shut to the kindly light of day, and there in a gloomy cavern Minos judges
men. I penetrated into the myrtle wood in which the victims of love wander
languishing, Phaedra, Procris, the sad Eriphyle, Evadne, Pasiphae, Laodamia,
and Cenis, and the Phoenician Dido. Then I went through the dusty plains
reserved for famous warriors. Beyond them open two ways. That to the left
leads to Tartarus, the abode of the wicked. I took that to the right, which
leads to Elysium and to the dwellings of Dis. Having hung the sacred branch at
the goddess's door, I reached pleasant fields flooded with purple light. The
shades of philosophers and poets hold grave converse there. The Graces and the
Muses formed sprightly choirs upon the grass. Old Homer sang, accompanying
himself upon his rustic lyre. His eyes were closed, but divine images shone
upon his lips. I saw Solon, Democritus, and Pythagoras watching the games of
the young men in the meadow, and, through the foliage of an ancient laurel, I
perceived also Hesiod, Orpheus, the melancholy Euripides, and the masculine
Sappho. I passed and recognised, as they sat on the bank of a fresh rivulet,
the poet Horace, Varius, Gallus, and Lycoris. A little apart, leaning against
the trunk of a dark holm-oak, Virgil was gazing pensively at the grove. Of
lofty stature, though spare, he still preserved that swarthy complexion, that
rustic air, that negligent bearing, and unpolished appearance which during his
lifetime concealed his genius. I saluted him piously and remained for a long
time without speech.
At last when my halting voice could proceed out of my throat:
"O thou, so dear to the Ausonian Muses, thou honour of the Latin name,
Virgil," cried I, "it is through thee I have known what beauty is, it is
through thee I have known what the tables of the gods and the beds of the
goddesses are like. Suffer the praises of the humblest of thy adorers."
"Arise, stranger," answered the divine poet. "I perceive that thou art a
living being among the shades, and that thy body treads down the grass in this
eternal evening. Thou art not the first man who has descended before his death
into these dwellings, although all intercourse between us and the living is
difficult. But cease from praise; I do not like eulogies and the confused
sounds of glory have always offended my ears. That is why I fled from Rome,
where I was known to the idle and curious, and laboured in the solitude of my
beloved Parthenope. And then I am not so convinced that the men of thy
generation understand my verses that should be gratified by thy praises. Who
art thou?"
"I am called Marbodius of the Kingdom of Alca. I made my profession in the
Abbey of Corrigan. I read thy poems by day and I read them by night. It is
thee whom I have come to see in Hell; I was impatient to know what thy fate
was. On earth the learned often dispute about it. Some hold it probable that,
having lived under the power of demons, thou art now burning in
inextinguishable flames; others, more cautious, pronounce no opinion,
believing that all which is said concerning the dead is uncertain and full of
lies; several, though not in truth the ablest, maintain that, because thou
didst elevate the tone of the Sicilian Muses and foretell that a new progeny
would descend from heaven, thou wert admitted, like the Emperor Trajan, to
enjoy eternal blessedness in the Christian heaven."
"Thou seest that such is not the case," answered the shade, smiling.
"I meet thee in truth, O Virgil, among the heroes and sages in those Elysian
Fields which thou thyself hast described. Thus, contrary to what several on
earth believe, no one has come to seek thee on the part of Him who reigns on
high?
After a rather long silence:
"I will conceal nought from thee. He sent for me; one of his messengers, a
simple man, came to say that I was expected, and that, although I had not been
initiated into their mysteries, in consideration of my prophetic verses, a
place had been reserved for me among those of the new sect. But I refused to
accept that invitation; I had no desire to change my lace. I did so not
because I share the admiration of the Greeks for the Elysian fields, or
because I taste here those joys which caused Proserpine to lose the
remembrance of her mother. I never believed much myself in what I say about
these things in the 'Aeneid.' I was instructed by philosophers and men of
science and I had a correct foreboding of the truth. Life in hell is extremely
attenuated; we feel neither pleasure nor pain; we are as if we were not. The
dead have no existence here except such as the living lend them. Nevertheless
I prefer to remain here."
"But what reason didst thou give, O Virgil, for so strange a refusal?"
"I gave excellent ones. I said to the messenger of the god that I did not
deserve the honour he brought me, and that a meaning had been given to my
verses which they did not bear. In truth I have not in my fourth Eclogue
betrayed the faith of my ancestors. Some ignorant Jews alone have interpreted
in favour of a barbarian god a verse which celebrates the return of the golden
age predicted by the Sibylline oracles. I excused myself then on the ground
that I could not occupy a place which was destined for me in error and to
which I recognised that I had no right. Then I alleged my disposition and my
tastes, which do not accord with the customs of the new heavens.
"'I am not unsociable,' said I to this man. 'I have shown in life a
complaisant and easy disposition, although the extreme simplicity of my habits
caused me to be suspected of avarice. I kept nothing for myself alone. My
library was open to all and I have conformed my conduct to that fine saying of
Euripides, "all ought to be common among friends." Those praises that seemed
obtrusive when I myself received them became agreeable to me when addressed to
Varius or to Macer. But at bottom I am rustic and uncultivated. I take
pleasure in the society of animals; I was so zealous in observing them and
took so much care of them that I was regarded, not altogether wrongly, as a
good veterinary surgeon. I am told that the people of thy sect claim an
immortal soul for themselves, but refuse one to the animals. That is a piece
of nonsense that makes me doubt their judgment. Perhaps I love the flocks and
the shepherds a little too much. That would not seem right amongst you. There
is a maxim to which I endeavour to conform my actions, "Nothing too much."
More even than my feeble health my philosophy teaches me to use things with
measure. I am sober; a lettuce and some olives with a drop of Falernian wine
form all my meals. I have, indeed, to some extent gone with strange women, but
I have not delayed over long in taverns to watch the young Syrians dance to
the sound of the crotalum.* But if I have restrained my desires it was for my
own satisfaction and for the sake of good discipline. To fear pleasure and to
fly from joy appears to me the worst insult that one can offer to nature. I am
assured that during their lives certain of the elect of thy god abstained from
food and avoided women through love of asceticism, and voluntarily exposed
themselves to useless sufferings. I should be afraid of meeting those,
criminals whose frenzy horrifies me. A poet must not be asked to attach
himself too strictly to any scientific or moral doctrine. Moreover, I am a
Roman, and the Romans, unlike the Greeks, are unable to pursue profound
speculations in a subtle manner. If they adopt a philosophy it is above all in
order to derive some practical advantages from it. Siro, who enjoyed great
renown among us, taught me the system of Epicurus and thus freed me from vain
terrors and turned me aside from the cruelties to which religion persuades
ignorant men. I have embraced the views of Pythagoras concerning the souls of
men and animals, both of which are of divine essence; this invites us to look
upon ourselves without pride and without shame. I have learnt from the
Alexandrines how the earth, at first soft and without form, hardened in
proportion as Nereus withdrew himself from it to dig his humid dwellings; I
have learned how things were formed insensibly; in what manner the rains,
falling from the burdened clouds, nourished the silent forests, and by what
progress a few animals at last began to wander over the nameless mountains. I
could not accustom myself to your cosmogony either, for it seems to me fitter
for a camel-driver on the Syrian sands than for a disciple of Aristarchus of
Samos. And what would become of me in the abode of your beatitude if I did not
find there my friends, my ancestors, my masters, and my gods, and if it is not
given to me to see Rhea's noble son, or Venus, mother of Aeneas, with her
winning smile, or Pan, or the young Dryads, or the Sylvans, or old Silenus,
with his face stained by Aegle's purple mulberries.' These are the reasons
which I begged that simple man to plead before the successor of Jupiter."
* This phrase seems to indicate that, if one is to believe Macrobius, the
"Copa" is by Virgil.
"And since then, O great shade, thou hast received no other messages?"
"I have received none."
"To console themselves for thy absence, O Virgil, they have three poets,
Commodianus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, who were all three born in those dark
plays when neither prosody nor grammar were known. But tell me, O Mantuan,
hast thou never received other intelligence of the God whose company thou
didst so deliberately refuse?"
"Never that I remember."
"Hast thou not told me that I am not the first who descended alive into these
abodes and presented himself before thee?"
"Thou dost remind me of it. A century and a half ago, or so it seems to me (it
is difficult to reckon days and years amid the shades), my profound peace was
intruded upon by a strange visitor. As I was wandering beneath the gloomy
foliage that borders the Styx, I saw rising before me a human form more opaque
and darker than that of the inhabitants of these shores. I recognised a living
person. He was of high stature, thin, with an aquiline nose, sharp chin, and
hollow cheeks. His dark eyes shot forth fire; a red hood girt with a crown of
laurels bound his lean brows. His bones pierced through the tight brown cloak
that descended to his heels. He saluted me with deference, tempered by a sort
of fierce pride, and addressed me in a speech more obscure and incorrect than
that of those Gauls with whom the divine Julius filled both his legions and
the Curia. At last I understood that he had been born near Fiesole, in an
ancient Etruscan colony that Sulla had founded on the banks of the Arno, and
which had prospered; that he had obtained municipal honours, but that he had
thrown himself vehemently into the sanguinary quarrels which arose between the
senate, the knights, and the people, that he had been defeated and banished,
and now he wandered in exile throughout the world. He described Italy to me as
distracted by more wars and discords than in the time of my youth, and as
sighing anew for a second Augustus. I pitied his misfortune, remembering what
I myself had formerly endured.
"An audacious spirit unceasingly disquieted him, and his mind harboured great
thoughts, but alas! his rudeness and ignorance displayed the triumph of
barbarism. He knew neither poetry, nor science, nor even the tongue of the
Greeks, and he was ignorant, too, of the ancient traditions concerning the
origin of the world and the nature of the gods. He bravely repeated fables
which in my time would have brought smiles to the little children who were not
yet old enough to pay for admission at the baths. The vulgar easily believe in
monsters. The Etruscans especially peopled hell with demons, hideous as a sick
man's dreams. That they have not abandoned their childish imaginings after so
many centuries is explained by the continuation and progress of ignorance and
misery, but that one of their magistrates whose mind is raised above the
common level should share these popular illusions and should be frightened by
the hideous demons that the inhabitants of that country painted on the walls
of their tombs in the time of Porsena--that is something which might sadden
even a sage. My Etruscan visitor repeated verses to me which he had composed
in a new dialect, called by him the vulgar tongue, the sense of which I could
not understand. My ears were more surprised than charmed as I heard him repeat
the same sound three or four times at regular intervals in his efforts to mark
the rhythm. That artifice did not seem ingenious to me; but it is not for the
dead to judge of novelties.
"But I do not reproach this colonist of Sulla, born in an unhappy time, for
making inharmonious verses or for being, if it be possible, as bad a poet as
Bavius or Maevius. I have grievances against him which touch me more closely.
The thing is monstrous and scarcely credible, but when this man returned to
earth he disseminated the most odious lies about me. He affirmed in several
passages of his barbarous poems that I had served him as a guide in the modern
Tartarus, a place I know nothing of. He insolently proclaimed that I had
spoken of the gods of Rome as false and lying gods, and that I held as the
true God the present successor of Jupiter. Friend, when thou art restored to
the kindly light of day and beholdest again thy native land, contradict those
abominable falsehoods. Say to thy people that the singer of the pious Aeneas
has never worshipped the god of the Jews. I am assured that his power is
declining and that his approaching fall is manifested by undoubted
indications. This news would give me some pleasure if one could rejoice in
these abodes. where we feel neither fears nor desires."
He spoke, and with a gesture of farewell he went away. I beheld his. shade
gliding over the asphodels without bending their stalks. I saw that it became
fainter and vaguer as it receded farther from me, and it vanished before it
reached the wood of evergreen laurels. Then I understood the meaning of the
words, "The dead have no life, but that which the living lend them," and I
walked slowly through the pale meadow to the gate of horn.
I affirm that all in this writing is true.*
* There is in Marbodius's narrative a passage very worthy of notice, viz.,
that in which the monk of Corrigan describes Dante Alighieri such as we
picture him to ourselves to-day. The miniatures in a very old manuscript of
the "Divine Comedy," the "Codex Venetianus," represent the poet as a little
fat man clad in a short tunic, the skirts of which fall above his knees. As
for Virgil, he still wears the philosophical beard, in the wood-engravings of
the sixteenth century.
One would not have thought either that Marbodius, or even Virgil, could have
known the Etruscan tombs of Chiusi and Corneto, where, in fact, there are
horrible and burlesque devils closely resembling those of Orcagna.
Nevertheless, the authenticity of the "Descent of Marbodius into Hell" is
indisputable. M. du Clos des Lunes has firmly established it. To doubt it
would be to doubt palaeography itself.
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