Virgil the Magician, Dall'Antico al Moderno

T\ h T "J>.T/\ ｾ ｕＯ｜＠ I ' h'T'h T 1\1'1\ STORIA E LETTERATURA RA CC OLTA DI STUD! E TEST! 293 DALL'ANTICO AL MODERNO IMMAGINI DEL CLASSICO NELLE LETTERATURE EUROPE£ a cura di PIERO BOITANI e EMILIA DIROCCO ROMA 2015 FONDAZIONE ETTORE PARATORE- EDIZIONI DI STORIA E LETTERATURA Prima edizione: luglio 2015 ISBN 978-88-6372 -8 13-2 eiSBN 978-88-6372-814 -9 Prefazione di PIERO BorrA Ani del convegno internazionale di comparatistica in ricordo di Ettore Paratore sotto I' Alto Patronato del Presidente della Repubblica (Roma 27-29 settembre 2012) PIERO BOITANI Discourse on Heroic Nam PETER DRONKE Un' immagine dell'eternita SuKANTA CHAUDHURI The Elusive Classic ......... .. MARIA LursA DoGLIO Tra antico e moderno. Par del Cinquecento .. ............ . }AN ZIOLKOWSKI Virgil the Magician ... ...... . FRANCISCO RICO Indigni qui nominentur ... Evietata Ia copia, anche pa rziale e con qualsiasi mezzo e//ettuata Ogni riproduzione che eviti l'acquisto di un libro minacda Ia sopravvivenza di un modo di trasmettere Ia cunoscenza KARL REICHL Hero and Leander: Medit on a Classical Theme ...... . Tutti i diritti ｲｩｾ ﾷ･ ｲｶ｡ｴ ｩ＠ EDIZIONI DI STORIA E LETTERATURA 00165 Roma - via delle Fornaci, 24 Tel. 06.39.67.03.07 - Fax 06.39.67.12.50 e-mail: [email protected] www.storiaeletteratura.it LINA BOLZON! Il gioco paradossale dell't;. fra parole e immagini .. ... ZHANG LONGXI In Search of a Land of H T"\ II T l'l. T F> C''T'U F> 0 A 'T' II T F> 0 F> INDICE DEL VOLUME Prefazione di PrERO BoiTANI ........... ... ........................ ........................ .... . VII Discourse on Heroic Narrative ... .... ................. ...... ................................. . 1 rat ore PIERO BOITANI PETER DRONKE Un'immagine dell'eternitd, da Boezio a T S. Eliot .................. .............. . 19 SUKANTA CHAUDHURI The Elusive Classic .. .. .................. .. .. ......................... .... .......................... . 31 MARIA LursA D oGuo Tra antico e moderno. Paratore e zl teatro classico italiano del Cinquecento ........... ........................ .... .. .... .. ..... ................. ................. . 43 }AN ZIOLKOWSKI Virgil the Magician ............ ........................ ............................................. . 59 fRANCISCO Rico Indigni qui nominentur ........ ................................................................. .. 77 KARL REICHL Hero and Leander: Medieval and Folkloristic Variations on a Classical Theme .................................. ........................ .. ....... .......... .. 87 LrNA BoLZON! Il gioco paradossale dell'utopia fra antico e moderno, /ra parole e immagini ......... .. ............ ...... ....................... .. ................... ... .. 121 ZI lANG LONGXI In Search of a Land of Happiness. Utopia and Its Discontents .............. . 135 VI INDICE DEL VOLUME M ASSIMO F USILLO «La nostalgia per quello che non ho vista». Tras/ormazioni di Ulisse sullo schermo .. ........ .. .. .. .. .... .... .. ........ .... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .......... .. .. .... 157 REMO C ESERANI Qualche ri/lessione sulla meta/o ra soliditdlliquiditd in testi antichi e moderni e sul suo usa storiogra/ ico .. .... ........ .............. .... .... .. ............ .... 167 In dice dei nomi .... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. . .. .. .... .. .... . ... .. . .. .. .. ... . .. .. .. .... .. . .. 185 Quando tre anr re per l'anno succe paratistica» in riq ad accettare e a pr elenco di possibili brare la figura di t latina ne alia sola 2 spesso passando p musica. Chiesi qu1 e stranieri in ragio tenere all 'Accadem ciso di interlocuzic Comitato Scien dissero immediataJ viduare gli oratori scegliere tra i migl re non solo l'accad ottenemmo l'assen: dall 'Inghilterra, da un notevole succes: Quanto all 'argc di chi parla. Quan entro un tema, ine interessa, dando qt ca e del fascino pe1 no il quale non ap1 fa Maria Luisa Dol Cinquecento) o a · sull'utopia e Sukan dettato da largo ｲ･ｾ＠ ]AN ZIOLKOWSKI VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN Publius Vergilius Maro, born in 70 BCE near Mantua and died in 19 BCE at Brindisi, came rapidly to epitomize Romanitas or Romanness in the style and content of his poetry!. For thousands of years he has been recognized for his three works, the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid. My primary aim here is to explore briefly how and why Virgil the poet became entwined with a strange alter ego, Virgil the magician. The sorcerer often seems so utterly unconnected with the Roman writer that the relationship between the two has mystified, challenged, and provoked everyone who has delved into it. How could the poster boy of poetic Latinitas, the sage chaperone of Dante through the netherworld, have metamorphosed into a necromancer who gained skills and powers through engagement with demons? Exploring the medieval material would be futile without considering modern scholarship, above all that of the nineteenth-century polymath Domenico Comparetti (1835-1927)2. But for the moment, we must not allow Comparetti himself to detain us from the Middle Ages and early modernity, the close to a half millennium during which Virgil the magician - Virgilius magus, in Latin - was widely known, probably even more widely than the poet himself. Coming to terms with Virgil the magician requires delving 1 The scholarship on Virgil's Romanitas is vast. One synthesis can be found in Brooks Otis, Virgil's Romanitas and his Adaptation of Greek Heroes, <<Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung», 2. 31. 2 Principal, Sprache undLiteratur, edited by W. Haase, Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 1981, pp. 985-1010. 2 D . Comparetti, Virgilio nel media eva, a cura diG. Pasquali, Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1937-194F; Vergil in the Middle Ages, translated by E. F. M. Benecke, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1997. More recent studies include L. Petzoldt, Vt'rgilius Magus: Der Zauberer Virgil in der literarischen Tradition des Mittelalters, in Horen-Sagen-Lesen-Lernen: Bausteine zu einer Geschichte der kommunikativen Kultur, edited by U. Brunold-Bigler- H. Bausinger, Bern, Peter Lang, 1995, pp. 549-568, and W. Suerbaum, Von der Vita Vergiliana uber die Accessus Vergiliani zum Zauberer Vergilius. Probleme-Perspektiven-Analyse, «Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt», 2. 31. 2, edited by W. Haase, 1981, pp. 1156-1262. 60 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI into sundry questions about his medieval manifestations. Is Virgil the magician indeed identical with Virgil the poet? Did Virgil's own verse give rise to the idea of the magician? Did the Virgilian biographical tradition do so? Did Christianity play a role? What was the scope of the Italian, particularly the Neapolitan, contribution? How much did European conceptions of Virgil the magician owe to Oriental sources? Finally, although the Middle Ages from the twelfth century on was the seedbed of tales about Virgil the magician, a secondary objective of mine will be to touch upon the survivals and adaptations of the tradition down to the present day. In the parallel universe inhabited by learned magicians, Virgil is active across a fantastic spectrum 3• He creates statues and talismans, often of bronze or other metals, that have powerfully apotropaic effects against flies and cicadas, leeches and snakes, spoilage of meat, breaking of horses' backs, eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and more. He travels vast distances with the help of supernatural devices he conjures up. In short, he is a wizard of the highest order. Virgil also fabricates automata, these too metallic, worthy of the most intrepid science fiction. Naples, home of Virgil's tomb and bones, was said to have had its goodly share of these devices. A bronze figure located opposite the city improved the climate when the south wind blew the trumpet it held to its mouth. An image of the city that Virgil enclosed in a bottle kept it safe as long as it remained intact. Similar is the special egg allegedly deposited with Virgil's bones in the Castel dell'Ovo 4 • A gate with two heads determined the fortunes of those who entered the city. A four-headed contraption provided reports on major international events5. The whole municipal hydraulic system of the city, as well as a nearby tunnel, was supposedly engineered by Virgil. But the most famous motifs were actually ascribed to Rome. Best known would be the bocca della verita, 'mouth of truth', featured in the 1953 film Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck (directed 3 For a major corpus of Virgilian legends, see]. M. Ziolkowski- M. C.]. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fzfteen Hundred Years, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008, pp. 825-1024 . 4 ]. M. Ziolkowski, Castel dell'Ovo , in The Virgil Encyclopedia, edited by R. F. Thomas]. M. Ziolkowski, Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, val. 1, p. 239. 5 On this specific motif (but without reference to this particular occurrence of it) , seeK. LaGrandeur, Th e Talking Brass Head as a Symbol a/Dangerous Knowledge in Friar Bacon and in A lphonsus, King of Aragon, «English Studies», 80 (1999), 5, pp. 408-422 . by William Wyle against the wall purportedly crea enable men ｴｯ･ｾ＠ either a drain co, of automated sta upon the Roman! of the empire7• ｾ＠ it struck a bell, a1 the mutiny. Also would patrol the According to even come clos( himself or at lea version by Jean automata and (tl himself at death his tomes, until shrouding the c< As the legen1 for Virgil's boun like episode in ' he tricked back upon him his p 6 S. D'Amico, Akashe-Bohme, Bo and W. van Anrooi van Middeleeuwen 7 J . Webster S Press, 1934, pp. Ｓ della citta medieva medievale dell'Uni nini, Roma, L'Erm The Ancient Roma 8 See for exar Tradition, pp. 100 9 Jean d'Outr d'Outremeuse, vo kowski and Putn 1o In the Gerr a bottle, jar, or o VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN ·Is Virgil the magiovvn verse give rise _al tradition do so? talian, particularly an conceptions of hough the Middle es about Virgil the upon the survivals s, Virgil is active .lismans, often of ffects against flies g of horses' backs listances with ｴｨｾ＠ is a vvizard of the lrthy of the most bones, was said ｲ･＠ located oppothe trumpet [osed in a bottle cial egg allegedly e vvith two heads bur-headed conhe vvhole municvvas supposedly F e. Best known ·ed in the 1953 Peck (directed C. J. Putnam, The University Press, by R. F. Thomas - -renee of it) , seeK. in Friar Bacon and !2. 61 by William Wyler), a large round face of stone that since 1632 has leaned against the wall in the vestibule of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, which was purportedly created by Virgil to perform as a lie-detector, specifically to enable men to test the chastity of women6 . In reality it served in antiquity as either a drain cover or a fountainhead. No longer extant in Rome is a park of automated statuary, the Salvatio Romae, that Virgil reportedly bestowed upon the Romans to alert them to dangers in even the farthest-flung quarters of the empire7• When a province mutinied, a bronze figure corresponding to it struck a bell, and a bronze warrior brandished his lance in the direction of the mutiny. Also not surviving is a robotic policeman, a bronze golem that vvould patrol the streets by night and kill curfew-violators 8 . According to the legends, the contraptions protect Virgil himself and even come close to enabling him to cheat death by either rejuvenating himself or at least maintaining his dead body uncorrupted. In the French version by Jean d'Outremeuse (1338-1400), Virgil's cadaver is protected by automata and (through a bizarre mechanism that requires him to sodomize himself at death) remains incorruptible, in the pose of a scholar poring over his tomes, until St. Paul arrives, disables the robots, and touches the hood shrouding the corpse, at which point it turns to dust9• As the legends burgeon, they offer a simple (if incredible) explanation for Virgil's boundless wisdom: he participated in an Aladdin-and-the-lamplike episode in which he released from a container a genie-like demon that he tricked back into it but only after acquiring magic books that conferred upon him his powers10 . This episode is first related in the Middle High 6 S. D'Amico, Bocca della verita, Brescia, Morcelliana, 194Y, Roma, Bulzoni, 1991; F. Akashe-Bohme, Bocca della verita, Bad Salzdetfurth, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth, 2004; and W. van Anrooij, Demond der waarheid: de Bocca della Verita te Rome in woord en beeld van Middeleeuwen tot heden, Haarlem, Gottmer, 2011. 7 J. Webster Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1934, pp. 37-41; N. Cilento, Sulfa tradizione della Salvatio Romae: la magica tutela della citta medievale, in Roma anna 1300. Atti della IV Settimana di studi di storia dell'arte medievale dell'Universita di Roma "La Sapienza" (19-24 maggio 1980), a cura di A. M. Romanini, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1983 (Mediaevalia, 1), pp. 695-703; and H. S. Versnel, The Ancient Roman Origin of the Salvatio Romae Legend, «Talanta», 4 (1972), pp. 46-62. 8 See for example the anonymous Lz/e of Virgil, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 1003-1023: 1014-1015. 9 Jean d'Outremeuse (1338-1400), Myreur des Histors: Chronique de Jean des Preis dit d'Outremeuse, vol. 1, edited by A. Borgnet, Brussels, 1864, pp. 275-278; translated in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 955-988: 986. 10 In the German tradition Virgil is connected with the genie-like devil that he frees from a bottle, jar, or other container, from which creature he acquires magic powers, and which 62 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI German rhyming couples of the Weltchronzk (History of the World, 1280) by the Viennese poet J ans or Jansen Enikel, who goes so far as to call Virgil «a child from hell» because he resorts to such black magid 1• The best-known couple of stories about Virgil the magician cast him in an unfavorable light. Let me illustrate the episodes with two images of a glass goblet (con/ittiera) for dessert or dessert wine, produced in Murano in the late fifteenth century12 . The first depicts Virgil in the basket: the great poet is here a hapless but relentless lover who becomes infatuated with the emperor's daughter but earns only humiliation when instead of bestowing upon him her favors at a tryst, she leaves him stranded in a basket outside her turret, to be ridiculed by the public. The second recounts the revenge of Virgil. In it the magician exacts vengeance for his public debasement by extinguishing all the fires in Rome and consenting for them to be relit only by holding the torches necessary for every single one to her private parts. Many medieval stories, gratifying the misogyny of clerics and the church, depict the wiles of women in action in toppling wise and powerful men 13 : Virgil was in a special category, in that in this one instance he obtained revenge. The presentation of the two tales together on a fancy vessel to be used at the conclusion of a rich meal suggests a not-so-subtle warning to both potential parties, male and female, who could embark upon an amorous dalliance. If the incorporation of both stories into the iconographic plan for such an object did not suffice to confirm how widely disseminated they were, we could also consider the fact that both were translated into Hebrew at the latest in the thirteenth century14 • Although Virgil as sorcerer and astrologer takes us far from the actual poet, investigating him does not dispel the anxiety of influence that a he tricks into returning to the bottle. For an illustration, see A. Lang, The Violet Fairy Book, illustrated by H. J. Ford, London and New York, Longmans, Green, 1901, pp. 364-379 (text of Virgilius the Sorceror) and pp. 367-368 (illustration of Virgilius and the Evil Spirit). 11 J. Enikel, Weltchronik, lines 23695-23764, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 926-932: 927. For a setting of Jans Enikel in the context of German-language literature, see 0. Neudeck, Vergil in deutschsprachiger Literatur um 1300: Ein Zauberer und Magier in heilsgeschichtlicher Funktion, «Germanica Wratislaviensia», 85 (1989), pp. 41-49. 12 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of ]. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.730a, b). 13 S. L. Smith, The Power of Women: a Tapas in Medieval Art and Literature, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. 14 D. Flusser, Virgil the Magician in an Early Hebrew Tale, «Florilegium», 7 (1985), pp. 145-154. preeminent author dealing with a fam1 the daunting prese poets, but also of t Comparetti, still a and successful that tions surrounding Although like rn his masterwork for it), he was also a hu rents of his time. Tt nation-building with the process of unifi< As Comparetti form patriotism may have being affected by d conditioned by the ! were embodied in t. the application of ｋｾ＠ lology played out m< the superb second e by none other than whose editorial phil< Timpanaro's The Ge The structure of way the two-prongec Comparetti set forth the second in his tw Lachmannian stemn 15 The first edition oJ media eva, Livorno, F. Vi 16 For the bipartite s Towards a R esponsible textes», 18 (1988), pp. Ｒｾ＠ win.ism, see W. Robins, B 17 Besides editing the Domenico Comparetti e la critici, 8). See S. Timpan 1963 (Bibliotechina del s2 lated by Glenn W. Most, e World, 1280) as to call Virgil ian cast him in o images of a in Murano in sket: the great uated with the Hof bestowing basket outside ｴｳ＠ the revenge I:Iebasement by to be relit only r private parts. the church, owerful men 13 : :e he obtained .cy vessel to be tle warning to upon an amoe iconographic disseminated translated into om the actual fluence that a Violet Fairy Book, pp. 364-379 (text lEvi! Spirit). am, Virgilian IraGerman-language Ein Zauberer und )989) , pp. 41-49. 1t Morgan, 1917 "terature, Philadel- lin», 7 (1985), pp. VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN 63 preeminent author can cause. Instead, it can compound the challenge of dealing with a famous and much-studied poet. For we must contend with the daunting presence not only of Virgil himself, the greatest of Roman poets, but also of the masterwork Vergil in the Middle Ages by Domenico Comparetti, still a classic 140 years after its publication, so monumental and successful that it has deterred systematic rethinking of the basic questions surrounding Virgil the magician 15 • Although like most good philologists of his day Comparetti strove in his masterwork for the objectivity of science (or at least the appearance of it), he was also a human being subject to the political and intellectual currents of his time. To cite one specific, he was an Italian much affected by nation-building within his country during the aftermath of the Risorgimento, the process of unification that led to the formation of a single Italian state. As Comparetti formulated the theories underlying Vergil in the Middle Ages, patriotism may have sometimes unconsciously trumped philology. Beyond being affected by the political upheaval within his country, he was surely conditioned by the genetic approaches to culture that in his own discipline were embodied in the predominantly bipartite stemmas which result from the application of Karl Lachmann's (1793-1851) method and that outside philology played out more broadly in Darwinism 16 • It is not sheer accident that the superb second edition (1937-1941) of Comparetti's book was produced by none other than Giorgio Pasquali (1885-1952), the classical philologist whose editorial philosophy receives treatment at the very end of Sebastiana Timpanaro's The Genesis of Lachmann's Method17 • The structure of Vergil in the Middle Ages recreates in its own extreme way the two-pronged family trees that are a common feature of stemmatics. Comparetti set forth his theory of Virgil the magician in what was originally the second in his two-part study, with each part being like the prong in a Lachmannian stemma: the first was on Virgil in Literature to Dante and 15 The first edition of the full two volumes appeared in 1872: D. Comparetti, Virgilio nel media eva, Livorno, F. Vigo, 1872. 16 For the bipartite stemma, see J. Grier, Lachmann, Bedier and the Bipartite Stemma: Towards a Responsible Application of the Common-Error Method, «Revue d'histoire des textes», 18 (1988), pp. 263-278. For the likenesses between the stemma in editing and Darwinism, see W. Robins , Editing and Evolution, «Literature Compass», 4 (2007), pp. 89-120. 17 Besides editing the second edition of Comparetti's book, Giorgio Pasquali also wrote Domenico Comparetti e la /ilologia del secolo XIX, Rieti, Bibliotheca editrice, 1929 (Quaderni critici, 8). See S. Timpanaro, La genesi del metoda del Lachmann, Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1963 (Bibliotechina del saggiatore, 18); The Genesis o/Lachmann's Method, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005. 64 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI the second on Virgil in Popular Legend 18 . In this second part Comparetti ascribes the spread of the Virgilian legends to the popular tradition of a particular city, Naples. Comparetti's thesis emphasizes a popular tradition current there. In the wash of scholarship that preexisted Comparetti, most was superseded altogether by his magnum opus19. Following his magisterial Vergil in the Middle Ages issued a thinner stream, in which the closest to a definitive treatment of the legendary material was offered in Virgil the Necromancer (1934)2°. This book by J. W. Spargo (1896-1956), besides advancing many feebly speculative arguments, is marred by its title: necromancy refers to the practice of consulting the dead so as to elicit prophecies from them, but Virgil the magician is hardly ever described as doing so. Most of the feats he performs qualify as white magic, rather than black magic - and necromancy, as the mistaken medieval etymologizing of it as 'negromancy' betokens, is black magic. Despite this flaw, the volume, a Ph.D. dissertation in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, remains even after eighty years astounding in its breadth and solidity. Since Comparetti and Spargo, Virgil as a sorcerer has been little examined. Occasionally small new pieces to the puzzle have been brought forward, but mainly those who are drawn to the poetry of Virgil have displayed embarrassment or disinterest about these other phenomena. To look at the other end of the spectrum, the name of such a consummately literary figure as Virgil has probably constituted a strong disincentive to folklorists who might otherwise have been drawn to the material. Before seeking to explicate the connections between Virgil the magician and Virgil the poet, we would be wise to ask if they are indeed identical. The Virgilian tradition has engendered a plethora of Virgils. By the early Middle Ages Virgil had lost his praenomen of Publius to become known mostly by his nomen of Virgil or alternatively by his cognomen of Maro. Actually, the process known ｡ｾ＠ Virgilius, permitt virgo) and with " change in spellin poet Vergil (as his Virgilius21. But in but indeed the de In the 1967 A by John Ball) the an African-Ameri he is passing thro of police in the t< a pretty fancy nan home, to which Ti The name Virgil the U.S. Among t century was proba In the early M examples, Virgil, l ry or early in the Grammaticus; anc (ca. 700-784). Thf Fergil. The equiva be found among ot in the late sixteen Virgil's reputation alchemy, his name 'pharmacist', and dictionary of 1632 18 The bipartite structure is readily apparent from the very table of contents: see Vergil in the Middle Ages, translated by Benecke, V-VI. 9 Perhaps the two most important earlier works of scholarship were E. Du Meril, De Virgile l'enchanteur, in E. Du Meril, Melanges archeologiques et litteraires, Paris, Franck, 1850, pp. 425-478, and K. L. Roth, Uber den Zauberer Virgilius, «Germania: Vierteljahrsschrift fiir Deutsche Alterthumskunde», 4 (1859), pp. 257-298. 20 Two post-Comparettan studies worthy of note were A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del media evo, Torino, Loescher, 1882-1883 , and J. S. Tunison, Master Virgil, the Author of the /Eneid as H e Seemed in the Middle A ges, Cincinnati, R. Clarke & Co., 1888. 2 J See C. Kasper, Moyen Age: Actes du Amiens 18-20 mars 19 Arbeiten zur Germani 22 See Welsh Battl 102: 102. 23 J. Wood, Virgil lore», 94 (1983) , pp. 9 24 Antiquce linguce vel Cambricae, ab alii j VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN tradition cing many mancy refers to ｾ＠ from them, but ost of the feats gic- and necrogromancy' beto. dissertation in even after eighty oeen little exameen brought forhave displayed a. To look at the ·ly literary figure folklorists who Iii gil the magician ed identical. The the early Middle nown mostly by aro. contents: see Vergil ere E. Du Meril, De nella memoria e . S. Tunison , Master ti, R. Clarke & 65 Actually, the transformation was not simple, since by the linguistic process known as iotacism or itacism the initial vowel in Vergilius became Virgilius, permitting an intensification of associations with virginity (Latin virgo) and with wands (Latin virga), like those possessed by wizards. The change in spelling has also allowed German to differentiate between the poet Vergil (as his name is customarily spelled in German) and the magician Virgilius 21 • But in the Middle Ages, Virgilius was not just a plausible name but indeed the default name for both the poet and the magician. In the 1967 American motion picture In the Heat of the Night (directed by John Ball) the actor Sidney Poitier plays a character named Virgil Tibbs, an African-American police detective suspected wrongly of murder while he is passing through a small southern town. At one point the racist chief of police in the town makes an issue of the name by remarking «Virgil is a pretty fancy name for a black boy like you» and asks what he is called at home, to which Tibbs' immediate rejoinder is «They call me Mister Tibbs». The name Virgil survives to this day, particularly (but not exclusively) in the U.S. Among figures of high culture, the most famous of the twentieth century was probably the American composer Virgil Thompson (1896-1989). In the early Middle Ages we find a few men named Virgil: to take three examples, Virgil, bishop of Arles, who died around 610; later in the century or early in the eighth, the much disputed mystery man, Virgilius Maro Grammaticus; and in the 700s, the Irishman known as Virgil of Salzburg (ca. 700-784). The name of the last-mentioned corresponds to the Irish Fergil. The equivalent Welsh rendering of the name is Pheryllt, which can be found among other places in a reference to the Book of Pheryllt contained in the late sixteenth-century Welsh prose tale Hanes Taliesin 22 • Thanks to Virgil's reputation for knowledge of medicine and magic, chemistry and alchemy, his name became enshrined in the standard modern Welshferyll(t) 'pharmacist', and related words 23 • The Welsh noun is first attested in the dictionary of 1632 by Dr. John Davies (ca. 1567-1644)24 • In most cases the See C. Kasper, Virgile au Moyen Age: Virgile l' enchanteur, in Figures de l' ecrivain au Moyen Age: Actes du Colloque du Centre d'Etudes Medievales de l'Universz'te de Picardie: Amiens 18-20 mars 1988, edited by D. Buschinger, Goppingen, Ki.immerle, 1991 (Goppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 510) , pp. 167-179: 170. 22 See Welsh Battle of the Trees, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 101102: 102. 23 J. Wood, Virgil and Taliesin: The Concept of the Magician in Medieval Folklore, «Folklore», 94 (1983), pp. 91-104: 97. 24 Antiqute lingute Britannica?, nunc vulgo dicta? Cambro-Britannica?, a suis Cymraecae vel Cambricae, ab aliis Wallicte, et lingute Latinte, dictionarium duplex: Prius, Britannica21 66 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI vernacularizations of Virgil's names remained reasonably close to the most common Latin forms of the name, but when the word degenerated into a form such as Filius any relationship between the Roman poet and the magician would have been much harder to recognize. One explanation for the emergence of Virgil the magician would be that he evolved into a magician partly because of engrained ancient assumptions about poets. The term poet itself owes to the Greek poietes 'maker', which leaves scope for the master craftsmanship later ascribed to Virgil. The equivalent Latin, vates, encompasses both seers and poets, and this poet-prophet produces carmen, both poem and charm. All of these facts are intriguing, but even when taken together they constitute predisposing rather than precipitating circumstances. Why was Virgil in particular singled out as a magician? One of the reasons could have been that his poems contain episodes and information concerned with magic. Virgil never uses the common noun magus (although a character named Magus appears in the Aeneid), but he employs the cognate adjective magicus twice in contexts involving erotic magic (performed by Alphesiboeus at Eclogues 8.66, by Dido at Aeneid 4.292-293). Orpheus descends to the underworld in his failed effort to bring back Eurydice (Georgics 4.465-472, Aeneid 6.119), while Aeneas goes down there after making an offering (Aeneid 6.243-254). Yet although Virgil's poetry contained portrayals of magic activity, was Virgil himself ever accused of favoring it? Not to judge by the depiction in Canto 20.1-30 of the Inferno that Dante gives of Virgil's reaction to the diviners, who are presented as being truly ass-backwards, with their heads twisted round so that their tears fell into the cleft between their buttocks25 • Stimulus for the origins of the tradition could also have come from among those who received and purveyed Virgil's poetry rather than from general and vague cultural conditions. In this regard a proclivity to extol Virgil as author beyond all other authors and even beyond other mere mortals can be detected very early. This outlook takes as a given not only that unlike Homer (a Ars poetica 359) \1 great genius, he \\ granted that Virg other words, that omniscience of tb who knew all the engmeenng were purposes, the om no omission) to n knowledge. As tb et par nigromancl mancy, of which l Already in th geoned around ｾ＠ absorbed Virgil t magician had bee tures in the vitae < pretation favorabl lives the only rna Among them one into a poplar tree! More promisin his father's emplo) medieval manuscn between common cuiusdam viatoris) was the employee a certain official s 26 Latinum, plurimis venerandre antiquitatis Britannica? monumentis respersum. Posterius, Latino-Britannicum. Accesserunt adagia Britannica, & plura & emendatiora quam antehac edita, Landini, Impress. in redibus R. Young, impensis Joan. Davies SS. Th. D., An. Dom. 1632, s.v. Fferyll/Fferyllt. 25 For a detailed analysis of Dante's views on magic with specific reference to Canto 20, see S. A. Gilson, Medieval Magical Lore and Dante's 'Commedia': Divination and Demonic Agency, «Dante Studies», 119 (2001), pp. 27-66. For a sampling and Putnam, Virgilian 27 Le Roman de I l'Ecole de Medecine d, 1997 (Classiques franc 28 This motif app Aelius Donatus, knm Donatiana: see Donatt Tradition, p. 182 (190) tree» on p. 1073. VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN oly close to the most degenerated into a poet and the magi- an would be that he ancient assumptions oz'ites 'maker', which to Virgil. The equivild this poet-prophet facts are intriguing, ling rather than pre- jgician? One of the aes and information mn magus (although be employs the cogc magic (performed 1.292-293). Orpheus ring back Eurydice wn there after mak['s poetry contained sed of favoring it? Inferno that Dante ·nted as being truly eir tears fell into the lo have come from y rather than from proclivity to extol nd other mere morgiven not only that unlike Homer (at least according to the saying that goes back to Horace's Ars poetica 359) Virgil never nods but also that because no power eluded the great genius, he was capable of everything. By late antiquity authors took for granted that Virgil had wisdom in every branch of study known to them - in other words, that the great poet was all-knowing 26 • In the Middle Ages the omniscience of the Roman poet was elevated to omnipotence: he was a man who knew all the workings of the universe. The remains of Roman art and engineering were attributed to him with abandon. More important for our purposes, the omniscience extended (for by definition omniscience knows no omission) to necromancy, of which Virgil was reputed to have universal knowledge. As the Old French Li romans de Dolopathos put it, «Par engin et par nigromance I Dont il sot tote la science» («By native craft and necromancy, of which he had complete knowledge»)2 7 . Already in the classical period a rampant biographical tradition burgeoned around Virgil. Although late in the Middle Ages this tradition absorbed Virgil the magician, the fusion took place after the tales of the magician had been around independently for a long time. In fact, few features in the vitae could have lent themselves to elaboration or even misinterpretation favorable to the development of Virgil the magician. In the early lives the only marvels are miraculous signs attendant upon Virgil's birth. Among them one is a dream involving a virga - but it is a shoot that grows into a poplar tree, not a magician's wand 28 • More promising is that many lives identify one of Virgil's grandfathers (and his father's employer) as Mag(i)us, his mother as Magia. Because ancient and medieval manuscripts did not use majuscules and minuscules to differentiate between common and proper nouns, the wording found in the lives «magi cuiusdam viatoris» could have led to the misapprehension that Virgil's father was the employee of «a certain itinerant magician» rather than of <<Magus, a certain official summoner». The Jesuit Charles de La Rue (1643-1725) may 26 respersum. Posterius, Pndatiora quam antehac s SS. Th. D. , An. Dom . r reference to Canto 20, Divination and Demonic 67 For a sampling of passages in which Virgil's omniscience is described, see Ziolkowski and Putnam , Virgilian Tradition , pp. 463-467. 27 Le Roman de Dolopathos/ H erbert; edition du manuscrit H436 de la Bibliotheque de !'Ecole de Medecine de Montpellier, 3 vols., edited by J.-L. Leclanche, Paris, H. Champion, 1997 (Classiques ｦｲ｡ｮｾｩｳ＠ du Moyen Age, 124-126). 28 This motif appears already in the fourth-century vita of Virgil by the grammarian Aelius Donatus, known alternately as the Vita Donatiana and as the Vita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana: see Donatus, Vita 5, edited (and translated) in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, p. 182 (190). For repetitions of the motif in later lives, see the listing under «poplar tree» on p. 1073. 68 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI have been the first to advance this explanation29 • His view was repeated occasionally later, into the nineteenth century, once even in a periodical published by Charles Dickens30 . But neither the magic in Virgil's poetry, the portent connected with his birth, nor the amphiboly of his grandfather's name is ever mentioned in any of the legends about Virgil the magician. How did Christianity affect the tradition? Testimony abounds that early and medieval Chistians credited Virgil with being a prophet for having presaged in Eclogue 4, in verses spoken by the Cumaean Sibyl, the coming of Christ31 • In medieval plays he was linked with the Sibyl and Prophets as a witness to the Incarnation32 • Messianic interpretations of the Fourth Eclogue may receive oblique reference in legends, since in some of them Virgil foretold that his magic devices would cease to function after a virgin gave birth 33 ; and of course they may help to justify Virgil's role as Dante's guide in the Commedia. 29 P Virgilii Maronis opera ... ad usum serenissimi Delphini. Juxta editionem novissimam parisiensem, A. 1722, Landini, impensis W. Innys, A. Ward,]. &P. Knapton , T. Longman, C. Hitch,]. Hodges,]. Shuckburgh, B. Barker,]. Pate, C. Bathurst,}. &J. Rivington, A. Clarke, & M . Cooper, MDCCXLVI [1746], vol. 1, p. xv: «Maium ilium , avum Virgilii, exemplaria vitae omnia Magum vacant. At cum ejus filia , Virgilii mater, juxta omnes Maia dicta sit: omnino Maiae pater fuit Maius, non Magus: indeque ortum existimo, ut Virgilius magicis artibus imbutus fuisse creditus sit ab Elnando monacho aliisque sequioris fesculi scriptoribus: quod & Ecloga septima magica quaedam sacra descripsisset, & peritus esset multarum artium, & praecipue avum habuisse Magum diceretur». 3° For an early nineteenth-century instance, see W. Whiter, Etymologicon universale: or, Universal etymological dictionary, 3 vols., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 18221825, vol. 3, p . 90: «This surprize will be still more abated, when we remember that Virgil's Father was an assistant to an Itinerant Conjurer, or Magician ("Magi cujusdam viatoris initio mercennarium")». For the Dickensian periodical, see Virgilius the Enchanter, «All the Year Round», May 2 (1863), pp. 225-229: 226. 31 For a brief introduction to this subject together with a compendium of key passages, see Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 487-503; for portraits of the prophetic Virgil and the Sibyl in art, pp. 453-457. The foundational expressions of the view that the prophetic power of the Sibyl or even of Virgil himself extended to foreknowledge of Christianity are found in Lactantius, Emperor Constantine I, and Augustine. 32 Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 453-454. 33 Thus Alexander Neckam (1157-1217) and John of Wales (died 1285) related how Virgil made this prediction of the Salvatio Romae, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, p . 856 (857), p. 913 (915); the anonymous Old French Noirons li Arabis (ca. 1311), reported likewise how Virgil predicted that the place of Neron would stand until a virgin bore a child, in Ziolkowski and Putnam , Virgilian Tradition , pp. 937, 938; and Jean d'Outremeuse recorded how Virgil made a copper image of a virgin with an inscription to indicate that it would stand until a virgin bore a child, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition , p. 963. What was the a The famous epitap is the earliest text and revered in ant reidentified 34 • The Neapolitan Virgil emerge in d sojourns in southeJ on lives of their c from the second l of Querfurt, and ( is the first to tell < Virgil's remains, if are the stories ascn attested in Neapoli Cronaca di Parteno; in Neapolitan diale Bartolomeo Caraq medieval evidence selves, Comparetti furnished by a fish< three other witness Even the twelftl challenges to the l lar level. First, the Second, these nonthe stories and mot inantly in Oriental 34 On the forgettin letter composed ca. 119 Putnam , Virgilian Tradi 35 The title is more ed Ischia (Chronicles o Ischia). See The Cronac, Ziolkowski, in Ziolkow 36 Vergil in the Mid! 196-197 (recounting an 37 On the promine1 U. Sezgin, Virgil der M der Arabisch -Islamisch VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN iew was repeated occaa periodical published il's poetry, the portent ｾｦ｡ｴｨ･ｲＧｳ＠ name is ever fc1an. ony abounds that early a prophet for having ･｡ｮ＠ Sibyl, the coming ne Sibyl and Prophets etations of the Fourth ｾｮ･＠ in some of them ｾ ｵｮ｣ｴｩｯ＠ after a virgin Virgil's role as Dante's uxta editionem novissimam ｴｯｮ Ｌ＠ T. Longman, C. . &}. Rivington, A. Clarke, , avum Virgilii, exemplaria omnes Maia dicta sit: omniut Virgilius magicis artibus s fesculi scriptoribus: quod esset multarum artium, & ｾﾷｋｮ｡ｰ l ':tymologicon universale: or, ge University Press, 1822we remember that Virgil's agi cujusdam viatoris initio e Enchanter, «All the Year pendium of key passages, · portraits of the prophetic ssions of the view that the ·o foreknowledge of Chrisstine. s (died 1285) related how ski and Putnam, Virgilian ch Noirons li Arabis (ca. eron would stand until a on, pp. 937, 938; and Jean gin with an inscription to ski and Putnam, Virgilian 69 What was the ambit of the Italian tradition, particularly the Neapolitan? The famous epitaph of Virgil, purportedly composed by the poet himself, is the earliest text to locate his burial place in Naples. The site, known and revered in antiquity, seems to have been forgotten later, before being reidentified 34 . The Neapolitan evidence bears closer scrutiny. The first clear signs of Virgil emerge in the twelfth century among Latin-writing clerics who had sojourns in southern Italy. Thereafter the tales about him ramify and take on lives of their own. This Neapolitan cycle begins with Latin authors from the second half of the twelfth century. John of Salisbury, Conrad of Querfurt, and Gervase of Tilbury all had stays in southern Italy. John is the first to tell of the brass fly, Conrad of the Neapolitan castle where Virgil's remains, if undisturbed, protected the city against tsunamis. But are the stories ascribed to Naples actually Neapolitan in origin? None are attested in Neapolitan writings before the text known conventionally as the Cronaca di Partenope, the first comprehensive history of Naples, composed in Neapolitan dialect in the mid-fourteenth century by a Neapolitan named Bartolomeo Caracciolo-Carafa35 • To bolster the rather late and skimpy medieval evidence for a tradition at Naples purveyed by Neapolitans themselves, Comparetti engages in the questionable tactic of adducing testimony furnished by a fisherman at the beginning of the nineteenth century and by three other witnesses at the end of the century36 . Even the twelfth-century records of Virgil the magician in Naples pose challenges to the hypothesis that the legends arose in Naples at a popular level. First, the reports emanate without exception from non-Italians. Second, these non-Italians are all courtiers, not peasant informants. Third, the stories and motifs with analogues in other literature have them predominantly in Oriental sources37 • What could account for this circumstance? I 34 On the forgetting, see John of Salisbury (ca. 1115-1180), Conrad of Querfurt (in a letter composed ca. 1196), and Gervase of Tilbury (after 1154-after 1222), in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 408-411. 35 The title is more properly Croniche de la inclita cita de Napule, con li bagni di Pozzuoli ed Ischia (Chronicles of the Renowned City of Naples, with the Baths of Pozzuoli, and of Ischia). See The Cronaca di Partenope, eclited by S. Kelly, Leiden, Brill, 2011 ; translated by S. Ziolkowski, in Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 945-953. 36 Vergil in the Middle Ages, p. 348 note 22, and pp. 372-373; Tunison, Master Virgil, pp. 196-197 (recounting an anecdote contained in von der Hagen, Briefe in die Heimath 3: 180). 37 On the prominence of Oriental material and the possibility of Naples as conduit, see U. Sezgin, Virgil der Magier, und legendiire Konige von Agypten, «Zeitschrift fur Geshichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften», 18 (2008-2009), pp. 351-355. 70 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI would point to the remarkable recasting (via oral literature) of the Thousand and One Nights, or a frametale much like it, by John of Alta Silva (HauteSeille), a Cistercian monk in Lorraine, into a format suitable for clerics - in Latin prose, with the injured party being a young male wronged by his Phaedra-like stepmother, with the Cistercian message of silence being vindicated, and with the savior being none other than Virgil himsel£3 8 . This Latin prose text, completed in 1184 and entitled De rege et septem sapientibus (On the King and the Seven Sages) but usually called Dolopathos, sets the action in a Sicily so fanciful that it counts among its cities Mantua. Geographical verisimilitude is not the goal: Sicily is chosen to signal that the contents of the frame tale are crosscultural. Virgil makes the ideal hero, as the most sagacious of the seven sages and most authoritative of authors, to validate the importation of material that might otherwise have seemed riskily exotic. When summed up, the evidence implies that no one smoking gun will be located to elucidate the heterogeneous phenomena that are associated with Virgil the magician. For various reasons the poet (or in a sense the poet's name) became a magnet that attracted legends. This magnetic field -like the motif of the magnetic mountain in one of the legends itself signifies - pulled to Virgil tales and lore that reflect contact with the Orient, in both Arabic science and Arabic narrative motifs. As I mentioned, a secondary objective of mine is to trace survivals and adaptations of the tradition down to the present day. In the sixteenth century the tradition remained vibrant even after the humanists begin to clear the thicket of this invasive growth 39 . This vitality is manifest in the early modern graphic novel of the life of Virgil the magician, in Dutch, English, and French40 • I call it graphic for two reasons, one being the many illustrations, 38 For the Latin text, see]. de Alta Silva, Historia septem sapientum. II. ]ohannis de Alta Silva Dolopathos, sive De rege et septem sapientibus, edited by A. Hilka, Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1913 (Sammlung mittellateinischer Texte, 5). For the portions most closely tied to Virgil (with English translation), see Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 831-848. For interpretation, see]. M. Ziolkowski, Vergil as Shahrazad: How an Eastern Frame Tale was Authorized in the West, in Studies for Dante. Essays in Honor of Dante Della Terza, edited by F. Fido- R. A. Syska-Lamparska- P. D. Stewart, Firenze, Edizioni Cadmo, 1998, pp. 25-36. 39 Sicco Polenton (1375/1376-1447) exemplifies beautifully the hostility of humanists, since his first redaction (1426) opens with criticism of those who treat Virgil as a magician: see Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp. 321-345: 321 and 332. 4 ° For a modernized version of the English, see Ziolkowski and Putnam , Virgilian Tradition, pp. 1003-1023 . For the most exhaustive word on the relations among the Dutch, English, and French versions, see Franssen, De tovenaar Vergilius. the other being t Virgil may be dis printings, in whi Like the whole < to books is twis1 sex, and unlimit1 that Virgil filchel of Virgil's own b French version p have the 1529 Pa page of which in revenge of Virgil as belonging legr By the first h starting with the er there was any the eighteenth cl magician from se expresses astonis magician and reje eighth Eclogue45. tury Virgil the ml 41 For the Dutch p. 25. 42 La Vie, les ditz imprimee, Lyon 1520 43 The title page Necromancer, betwee naar Vergilius: een tel wercken die hi dede b sterman, circa 1525, 1 44 G. Naude, Apt nez de magie, 1625. F For All the Wise Men Present Age, translate the book-sellers of L 45 Voltaire, Essai Oeuvres completes, 7 vol. 48, pp. 499-500, 1.12 John of Salis bur demonstrate what uu VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN !literature) of the Thousand John of Alta Silva (Hauteat suitable for clerics - in 'ung male wronged by his ·sage of silence being vindiVirgil himself38 • This Latin ge et septem sapientibus (On Dolopathos, sets the action tties Mantua. Geographical signal that the contents of he ideal hero, as the most ttive of authors, to validate have seemed riskily exotic. one smoking gun will be ea that are associated with et (or in a sense the poet's his magnetic field -like the itself signifies - pulled the Orient, in both Arabic lo to trace survivals and adap- r· In the sixteenth century 1manists begin to clear the manifest in the early modan, in Dutch, English, and the many illustrations, r sapientum. II. Johannis de Alta r A. Hilka, Heidelberg, C. Winter, ｳ＠ most closely tied to Virgil (with rrradition, pp. 831-848. For interｴ･ｲｮ＠ Frame Tale was Authorized )ella Terza, edited by F. Fido - R. no, 1998, pp. 25-3 6. :ifully the hostility of humanists, :e who treat Virgil as a magician: .5: 321 and 332. >wski and Putnam, Virgilian Trathe relations among the Dutch, ·rgilius. 71 the other being the nature of said illustrations. A flippancy vis-a-vis the 'real' Virgil may be displayed on the very title page of both the Dutch and English printings, in which the helpless reader is effectively mooned by a woman 41 . Like the whole cycle of Virgil the magician, the relationship of this novel to books is twisted. The volume has been described as featuring «power, sex, and unlimited travel», all of them having their origins in magic books that Virgil filches from a fiend - but not even the slightest mention is made of Virgil's own books, books he composed. And yet the frontispiece of the French version pictures Virgil in his study4 2 • Less than two decades later we have the 1529 Paris edition of Virgil from the press of Jehan Petit, the title page of which incorporates depiction of both Virgil in the basket and the revenge of Virgil, demonstrating that at least those two tales were regarded as belonging legitimately to the biographical tradition43 • By the first half of the seventeenth century a contention arose in France, starting with the French scholar Gabriel Naude (1600-1653), over whether there was any legitimacy to the conception of Virgil the magician44 • By the eighteenth century Enlightenment rationality has banished Virgil the magician from serious consideration: the French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) expresses astonishment that Virgil could have been taken seriously for a magician and rejects this erroneous belief as a false inference prompted by the eighth Eclogue45 . As we have seen, in the second half of the nineteenth century Virgil the magician returns to life, as an object of fascination to scholars 4 L For the Dutch, see Franssen, De tovenaar Vergilius, cover and p . 75; for the English, p. 25. 42 La Vie, les ditz, et merveilles de Vergille. Quil fist luy estant en Romme. Nouvellement imprimee, Lyon 1520. 43 The title page of Paris, Jehan Petit, 1529 was reproduced first in Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, between pp. 266-267, and more recently in P. J. A. Franssen, editor, De tovenaar Vergilius: een tekstuitgave van Virgilius: van zijn leven, doot ende van den wonderlijcken wercken die hi dede by nigromancien ende by dat behulpe des duvels: Antwerpen, Willem Vorsterman, circa 1525, Hilversum, Verloren, 2010 (Middelnederlandse tekstedities, 12), p. 65. 44 G. Naude, Apologie pour tousles grands personnages qui ont este faussement soupfonnez de magie, 1625. For an English translation, see The History ofMagick by Way of Apology, For All the Wise Men Who Have Unjustly Been Reputed Magicians, From the Creation, To the Present Age, translated by J. Davies, London, Printed for John Streater, and are to be sold by the book-sellers of London, 1657. 45 Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs (1756) and Un chretien contre six juz/s (1776), in his Oeuvres completes, 72 vols., edited by M. Beuchot, Paris, 1829-1840, vol. 25, p. 158 and vol. 48, pp. 499-500, cited by Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, p. 437 note 10. At Policraticus 1.12 John of Salisbury quoted Eclogue 8.80-81 (which he calls tellingly the Farmaceutria) to demonstrate what uultiuoli (a kind of enchanter who made use of wax figurines and pins) are. 72 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI in the heyday of philology. The Romantic era may not have been kind to the conventional Virgil, author of the Aeneid and other canonical poems, but the folkloric Virgil enabled the name to remain at least faintly alive in broader circles, as a character with at least some of the magnetism that attracted attention to the pseudo-bard Ossian, to Merlin, and to other such figures. Since the early twentieth century those who have disliked Virgil the poet or who have at the least been disinterested in him and the classicism he embodies may have shown the most excitement about Virgil the Sorcerer. One of many often para-classical and still more often anticlassical genres is fairy tale. The tale of Virgil the magician found a home in the Violet Fairy Book (1901) by Andrew Lang (1844-1912), a Scots man of letters. This book was one of twelve color-coded collections of fairy tales, known at the time as Lang's 'Coloured' Fairy Books or Fairy Books of Many Colors, that were published between 1889 and 1910 and that encompassed 437 tales. As one would expect from Victorian children's stories, aspects of the Virgilian legends are toned down considerably: the woman who embarrassed Virgil is made into a kind of Joan of Arc, aflame while fettered to a stake ... and Lang avoids mentioning that in the original tale the crowd had to kindle torches from one of her lower orifices 46 • Around the same time retellings of stories and amateur recapitulations of Comparetti's findings also bring Virgil the magician before a larger readership 47• Among serious poets, the only one who has written of Virgil the magician in the past century is Robert Graves (1895-1985). Graves, who was well acquainted with Virgil and his historical context, pronounced famously that Virgil would be in vogue whenever governments were stable, churches full, and economies expanding48 • His declaration was not meant to be commendatory, but rather to rebut T. S. Eliot's Virgil and the Christian World49 • Indeed, Graves displayed a lifelong contempt for Virgil 50 • Not unrelatedly, Graves lande in his assump 1924 poem ab official Virgil, The fullest magician in c 1993), a prolif One of ｄ｡ｶｩ､ｾ＠ actor none ott own pseudo-at a richly anacht and marked b) viewed throug supremely un: Encountering in what becam but never brou the Enigmatic ｾ＠ Magus is com} his heart's desi glass, Vergil-l and North Afr Nearly two novel, entitled took place be£ The Compl guin,2003,pp.27 ter, Carcanet Pre 52 In chronol Tales from the B York, Pocket Bo 1987), pp. 108-1 Winter), reprinte Sea-Scene, or Ver Scarlet Fig; Verg «Asimov's» (Sep Swanwick, «Asi Matrix» (Decem 5> Garden C 54 Garden C 51 46 Violet Fairy Book, 372. Examples would be the anonymous The Wonderful History ofVirgilius the Sorcerer of Rome, Englishedfor the First Time, London, D. Nutt, 1893, on the text at the base of which see Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, pp. 251 -252, and The Unpublished Legends of Virgil, edited by C. Godfrey Leland, New York, Macmillan, 1900. 48 R. Graves, The Virgil Cult, «Virginia Quarterly Review», 38 (1962: Winter), 1, pp. 13-35. 49 T. S. Eliot, Virgil and the Christian World (originally broadcast from London on September 9, 1951), in T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets, London, Faber and Faber, 1957, pp. 135-148. 50 See B. L. Hijmans, Robert Graves, The White Goddess and Vergil, «Mosaic» 2 (1969: Winter), 2, pp. 58-73. For a broad context, the indispensable starting point is T. Ziolkowski, Virgil and the Moderns, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 6, 15, 99-100, 120, 124, 140-141, 191, 195, and 238. 47 VJRGIL THE MAGICIAN _been kind to the _al poems, but the live in broader citattracted attention rures. ed Virgil the poet the classicism he irgil the Sorcerer. classical genres is n the Violet Fairy I etters. This book .nown at the time Colors, that were 437 tales. As one the Virgilian legarrassed Virgil is stake ... and Lang to kindle torches etellings of stories bring Virgil the f Virgil the magives, who was well ounced famously e stable, churches meant to be comChristian World49 • . Not unrelatedly, irgilius the Sorcerer of t at the base of which red Legends of Virgil, Winter), 1, pp. 13-35. m London on Septem- er, 1957, pp. 135-148. gil, «Mosaic» 2 (1969: ooint is T. Ziolkowski, p. 6, 15, 99-100, 120, 73 Graves landed on the side of the mythic/folkloric as opposed to the literary in his assumptions about the spirit that informs the best poetry. Thus his 1924 poem about 'Virgil the Sorcerer' is another means of repudiating the official Virgil, and of siding with the mythic/folkloric51 • The fullest and most unusual expression of engrossment in Virgil the magician in contemporary literature is owed to Avram Davidson (19231993), a prolific American writer of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy. One of Davidson's best-known series of novels and stories has as its central actor none other than Vergil Magus. In effect, Davidson imposes upon his own pseudo-antiquity the legendary Virgil of the Middle Ages. The result is a richly anachronistic fantasy world, peopled by a colorful cast of characters and marked by magic, mystery, and superstition, in which imperial Rome is viewed through a medieval optic. He published some of these tales in such supremely un-Virgilian milieus as Amazing Stories; Asimov)s; and Edges52 . Encountering Virgil in such settings can be jarring. The first novel to appear in what became the Vergil Magus series (projected to comprise nine novels but never brought close to completion) was The Phoenix and the Mirror: 0" the Enigmatic Speculum 53 , considered Davidson's chef d'oeuvre. In it Vergil Magus is compelled to create a mirror in which the beholder may discern his heart's desire. In his quest for the ore required to construct this looking glass, Vergil-like Odysseus or Aeneas- journeys across the Mediterranean and North Africa. Nearly two decades later Davidson brought out the second Vergil Magus novel, entitled Vergil in Averno54 • It describes adventures in Vergil's life that took place before those in the first novel. In it Vergil, young and not yet 51 The Complete Poems in One Volume, edited by B. Graves - D. Ward, London, Penguin, 2003, pp. 270-272; Complete Poems, 3 vols., edited by B. Graves- D. Ward, Manchester, Carcanet Press, 1995-1999, vaL 1 (1999), pp. 311-312. 52 In chronological order, A. Davidson, The Other Magus, in Edges: Thirteen New Tales /rom the Borderlands o/ the Imagination, edited by U. K. Le Guin - V. Kidd, New York, Pocket Books, 1980, pp. 85-87; Vergil and the Caged Bird, «Amazing», 61 Uanuary, 1987), pp. 108-112; Yellow Rome, or Vergil and the Vestal Virgin, «Weird Tale», (1992-1993: Winter), reprinted in Tbe Avram Davidson Treasury, and incorporated into Tbe Scarlet Fig; Sea-Scene, or Vergil and the Ox-Tbrall, <<Asimov's» (February, 1993), incorporated into Tbe Scarlet Fig; Vergil and the Dukos: Hie inclusus vitam perdit, or Tb e Imitations of the King, «Asimov's» (September 1997), pp. 102-113 ; Vergil Magus: King without Country, with M. Swanwick, «Asimov's» Uuly 1998), pp. 78-99; and Young Vergil and the Wizard, «Infinite Matrix» (December 2001), incorporated into The Scarlet Fig. 53 Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1969. 54 Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1987. 74 JAN ZIOLKOWSKI established in a career, is hired by the potentates of an imagined city named Averno to determine why the supplies of natural gas that have generated great wealth for the city have shifted and diminished. Like Lake Avernus in Virgil the poet, Averno carries infernal associations in Davidson's novel. Perhaps reflecting social concerns of the late twentieth century (and the present day?), the city is a rich, industrial hell where environmental squalor and commercial wealth seemingly go hand in hand. The full sequence of nine novels was never finished. A third Vergil Magus novel, called The Scarlet Fig,· Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, was released posthumously55 • Its chapters include a few previously released short stories. (Other short stories about Vergil Magus were never incorporated into novels). As an homage to Davidson, the volume contains facsimiles of selected cards from the extensive 'encyclopedia' that he assembled during the three decades of research for the Vergil Magus cycle. This final installment in the adventures of Vergil Magus describes his travels once again after he leaves Rome under accusation of having defiled a Vestal Virgin. His travels, similar to the Odyssean books of the Aeneid, bring Vergil into contact with many marvelous creatures and races. Avram Davidson's novels and stories about Vergil Magus fuse tidbits from the life and poetry of the poet Virgil with the general atmosphere of Virgilian legends associated with Virgil the sorcerer. They are now largely footnotes to the swell of fantasy and alternate history that arrived in the wake of the spectacular success that J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings enjoyed in the 1960s, but they demonstrate (and contribute in their own modest way to) the enduring fascination of the medieval traditions about Virgil. The Phoenix and the Mirror will shed, if it has not already lost, its status as a minor classic, but it deserves to elicit additional attention from scholars and further enjoyment from adventurous general readers. Within the Virgilian tradition of both literature and scholarship, Virgil the magician has occupied a place much greater than a mere sidelight. In fact, it would be unfair to relegate him even to a large appendix. To explain him Comparetti looked to Italy. In my view we need rather to look east. Beyond the style of source-seeking known by the German term Quellenforschung, we should pay heed to the nearly universal impulse to relieve the unbroken stress of veneration with a laugh and to counterbalance realism with fantasy. It symptomizes of the reverence in which Virgil has so long been held that 55 London, Rose Press, 2005. he should develop 2 should not be shunJ a fascinatingly varie Virgil. The show m VIRGIL THE MAGICIAN ned city named have generated Lake Avernus vidson's novel. ntury (and the mental squalor A third Vergil d of Stone, was released short r incorporated ils facsimiles of embled during 1is final installels once again Vestal Virgin. ·ing Vergil into us fuse tidbits atmosphere of tre now largely arrived in the [obbit and The and contribute medieval tradihas not already ional attention al readers. 75 he should develop a split personality. And how appropriate, that his alter ego should not be shunned but instead be accommodated within the tradition as a fascinatingly variegated and still-living incidental to the more conventional Virgil. The show must go on, and if Virgil the magician has his way, it will.