The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales Part 38

Mithridata reluctantly complied.

"By Heaven!" exclaimed the King, "such a sight might recall the departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too late."

"O King," urged Mithridata, "how could this countenance do thy son any good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?"

"I am not aware of that," said the King.

"Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state of deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?"

"Not to my knowledge," said the King. "The symptoms, as I understand, are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly calls upon thee."

"This is most incomprehensible," said Mithridata. "There was no drug in my father's laboratory that could have produced such an effect."

"The sum of the matter is," continued the King, "that either thou wilt repair forthwith to my son's chamber, and subsequently to church; or else unto the scaffold."

"If it must be so, I choose the scaffold," said Mithridata resolutely.

"Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son's chamber would but destroy whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul."

"Chamberlain," cried the monarch, "bring me a strait waistcoat."

Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King's feet, taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched history.

The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. "a bon chat bon rat!"

he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. "So thou art the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did any child in the world take an equal quant.i.ty of physic: but there is now no poison on earth can harm him. Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison."

NOTES

The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering thanks to many friends for their a.s.sent to republication.

P. 5. _The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,_--Hereby we may detect the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with Armenia. "h.e.l.lenic letters," says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the fourth century, "were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens" ("University Life in Ancient Athens," p. 73).

P. 28. _Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality._--The belief in this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the groundwork of Leopold Schefer's novel, "Der Unsterblichkeitstrank," which has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of "The Potion of Lao-Tsze."

P. 38. _So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously._--In A.D. 683, the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband's death, caused her son to be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In our day we have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns.

P. 50. _Ananda the Miracle Worker._--This story was originally published in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared in the _Revue Britannique_ for November, 1872. Buddha's prohibition to work miracles rests, so far as the present writer's knowledge extends, on the authority of Professor Max Muller ("Lectures on the Science of Religion"). It should be needless to observe that Ananda, "the St. John of the Buddhist group," is not recorded to have contravened this or any other of his master's precepts.

P. 66. _The City of Philosophers._--This story has been translated into French by M. Sarrazin.

P. 68. _There to establish a philosophic commonwealth._--The pet.i.tion was actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the disordered condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a sinking state, possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an age of peace and culture.

P. 82. _The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge._--Gallienus was fond of such practical jocularity. "Quum quidam gemmas vitreas pro veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, vindicari vellet, surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea caponem emitt.i.t, mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici jussit, 'Imposturam fecit et pa.s.sus est': deinde negotiatorem dimisit" (Trebellius in Gallieno, cap. xii.).

P. 100. _Hypati, anthypati, &c._--_Hypati_ and _anthypati_ denote consuls and proconsuls, dignities of course merely t.i.tular at the court of Constantinople. _Silentiarii_ were properly officers charged with maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was perhaps performed by deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons of distinction.

The _protospatharius_ was the chief of the Imperial body-guard, of which the _spatharocandidati_ const.i.tuted the _elite_.

P. 114. _The Wisdom of the Indians._--Appeared in 1890 in _The Universal Review_. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian's travels in Burma.

P. 124. _The Dumb Oracle._--Appeared in the _University Magazine_ for June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval myth here transferred to cla.s.sical times, is also the groundwork of Browning's ballad, "The Boy and the Angel."

P. 136. _Duke Virgil._--The subject of this story is derived from Leopold Schefer's novel, "Die Sibylle von Mantua," though there is but little resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as his authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke in the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the interpretation of the insignia accompanying a mediaeval statue of the poet.

P. 138. _To put the devil into a hole_.--"Then sayd Virgilius, 'Shulde ye well pa.s.se in to the hole that ye cam out of?' 'Yea, I shall well,' sayd the devyl. 'I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not do it.'

'Well,' sayd the devyll, 'thereto I consent.' And then the devyll wrange himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. Virgilius kyvered the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte still therein" ("Romance of Virgilius").

_Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?_--"Than he thought in his mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great landes belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells. And the foundacyon of it was of eggs" ("Romance of Virgilius").

P. 148. _The Claw_.--Originally published in _The English Ill.u.s.trated Magazine_.

P. 151. _Peter of Abano_.--Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic. It is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains having been secretly removed by his friends. Honours were afterwards paid to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate. For his authentic history, see the article in the _Biographie Universelle_ by Ginguene; for the legendary, Tieck's romantic tale, "Pietro von Abano"

(1825), which has been translated into English.

P. 156. _Alexander the Rat-catcher_.--This story, to whose ground-work History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in vol.

xii. of _The Yellow Book_, January, 1897.

P. 157. _Cardinal Barbadico_.--This cardinal was actually entrusted by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion upon which the "sardonic grin" imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable instance of a man "kicked upstairs." As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there.

P. 177. _The Rewards of Industry._--Appeared originally in _Atalanta for August_, 1888.

P. 194. _The Talismans._--First published in _Atalanta_ for September, 1890.

P. 202. _The Elixir of Life._--Published July, 1881, in the third number of a magazine ent.i.tled _Our Times_, which blasted the elixir's character by expiring immediately afterwards.

P. 226. _The Purple Head._--Appeared originally in _Fraser's Magazine_ for August, 1877.

P. 228. _The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison._ "Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini comparatione fulgoris" (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.).

P. 230. _All these sovereigns._--"Diligentissime et Aurelia.n.u.s et Probus et proxime Diocletia.n.u.s missis diligentissimis confectoribus requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt" (Vopiscus, _loc. cit._).

P. 241. _Pan's Wand._--Published originally in a Christmas number of The _Ill.u.s.trated London News_.

P. 249. _A Page from the Book of Folly._--Appeared in _Temple Bar_ for 1871.

P. 282. _The Philosopher and the b.u.t.terflies._--One of the contributions by various writers to "The New Amphion," a little book prepared for sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of Edinburgh in 1886.

P. 294. _The Three Palaces._--Published originally on a similar occasion to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an extensive repertory of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902.

P. 300. _New Readings in Biography._--Originally published in _The Scots Observer_ in 1889.

P. 315. _The Poison Maid._--The author wrote this tale in entire forgetfulness of Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter," which nevertheless he had certainly read.