Intialo the Spirit of the Haunting Shadow
“O ombra che dalla luce siei uscita,
Misuri il passo al Sole, all’uom la vita.”
“Umbram suam mètuere.”
“Badate.
La vostra ombra vi avrà fatto paura.”
—Filippo Pananti.
“There is a feeling which, perhaps, all have felt at times;... it is a strong and shuddering impression which Coleridge has embodied in his own dark and supernatural verse that Something not of earth is behind us—that if we turned our gaze backward we should behold that which would make the heart as a bolt of ice, and the eye shrivel and parch within its socket. And so intense is the fancy, that when we turn, and all is void, from that very void we could shape a spectre as fearful as the image our terror had foredrawn.”—Bulwer, The Disowned.
The resemblance and the relation of the shadow to the body is so strangely like that of the body to the soul, that it is very possible that it first suggested the latter. It is born of light, yet is in itself a portion of the mystery of darkness; it is the facsimile of man in every outline, but in outline alone; filled in with uniform sombre tint, it imitates our every action as if in mockery, which of itself suggests a goblin or sprite, while in it all there is something of self, darkling and dream-like, yet never leaving us. It is only evident in brightest hours, like a skeleton at an Egyptian feast, and it has neither more nor less resemblance to man than the latter. Hence it came that the strange “dwellers by the Nile” actually loved both shade and death by association, and so it happened that
“Full many a time
They seemed half in love with easeful Death;
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,”
while they made of the cool shadow a portion of the soul itself, or rather one of the seven or eight entities of which man consisted, these being—Khat, a body; Ba, the spirit; Khon, the intelligence; Khaïbit, the shadow; Ren, the name; Ka, eternal vitality; Ab, the heart; and Sahn, the mask or mummy.
It is extremely interesting to consider, in connection with this Egyptian doctrine, the fact, illustrated by every writer on Etruscan antiquity, that these ancient dwellers in Italy, when they represented the departed, or the dead, as living again on a tomb, added to the name of the deceased the word Hinthial. This I once believed meant simply a ghost or spirit. I had no other association with the name.
I inquired for a long time if there was any such name as Hintial for a ghost among the people, and could not find it. At last my chief agent succeeded in getting from sources to me unknown, but, as in all cases, partly from natives of the Toscana Romagna, or Volterra, and at different times, very full information regarding this mysterious being, which I combine as follows:
Intialo.
“This is a spirit in human form who shows himself in any shadow, 238 and diverts himself by inspiring terror in a sorcerer, or in any one who has committed a crime. He causes a fearful shadow to be ever present to the man, and addresses him thus:
Il domone al Stregone.
“Vile—tu non potrai
Avere mai bene—avrai
Sempre la mia ombra
In tua presenza, e saro
Vendicato... 239
“Tu non potrai giammai
Essere solo, che l’ombra
Mia ovunque andrai
Ti seguira: tu non potrai
Essere mai solo, tu sarai
Sempre in mio potere!
“Al mio incantesimo non avrai
Ne pace ne bene, al mio
Incanto tu tremerai,
Te e tutta la casa dove ti troverai,
Se sei in mezzo alla strada,
Tu tremerai—
Te e tutta la terra!
“Al mio volere tu andrai
Come cane alla pagliaio,
Alla voce del suo maestro;
Tu me vorrai
Vedere, e non mi vedrai,
Mi sentirai—
Vedrai sola la tua ombra.
“Tu sei cattivo e scelerato,
Tu sei avelenato,
Nel cuore e nell anima,
E più bene non avrai,
Sei avelenato nel cuore,
E nell anima, vai,
Tu siei maladetto;
E il spirito sempre ti seguira
Ovunque tu vada!”
Translation.
The Demon to the Sorcerer.
“Wretch! long lost in wickedness,
Thou shalt ne’er have happiness;
Though to distant lands thou’lt flee,
Still my shadow thou shalt see,
And I will revengèd be.
“Solitude thou ne’er shalt know,
Where thou goest my shade shall go,
And wherever thou mayst fly
Still the shadow will be by—
Ne’er alone at any hour,
And for ever in my power.
“By my spell thou ne’er shalt know
Peace or joy on earth below,
At my charm a deadly fear
Shall seize on all men standing near;
Thou shalt tremble in thy home,
Or if thou abroad shouldst roam,
Shivering with fear thou’lt be,
And the earth shall shake with thee.
“At my bidding thou must stir,
And hasten as the vilest cur
Must hasten when his master calls,
And leave his straw amid the stalls;
And if thou wouldst gaze on me,
Still my form thou shalt not see;
Thou shalt feel when I am here,
Feel me in thy deadly fear,
Yet only see thy shadow near.
“Thou art vile and wicked too,
Thou art poisoned through and through;
In thy heart and in thy soul,
Cursedness is in the whole,
In thy soul and in thy heart,
Poison steeped in every part.
Cursed ever! now, depart!
Yet wherever thou shalt flee
I will ever follow thee!
“Then this man will be in terror, and he will ever see the shadow before him by day and by night, and thus he will have no peace, and yet this is all the time the spirit of Intialo.
“Now, when he is thus tormented for some past misdeed, and he feels himself haunted, as it were, by the shadow of the one whom he has wronged, when he finds at last that he is not pursued, indeed, by it, but by Intialo, then he shall repeat the Exorcism:
Scongiurazione di Intialo.
“Intialo! Intialo! che quando
Una persona ai preso,
O per seguitare le ingombri
Le ingombri sempre la cammina.
“Intialo! Intialo! se libero
Il passo mi lascerai meglio
Per te sara, se non mi verrai
Lasciare ti faccio sapere
Tu sarai sempre in mio potere.
“Intialo! Intialo! ti faccio sapere,
Se metto in opera
La mia scongiurazione,
Non ti lasciero più bene avere,
E ogni mi a chiamata
Ti faro correre
Come chane al pagliaio.
“Intialo! Intialo!
Ti faccio sapere
Che tu pensi a fare
Il tuo dovere,
Se ancora mi viene a tormentare
Muso di porco tu possa diventare.
“Intialo! Intialo!
Tu siei furbo e maligno,
Ma io me ne infischio,
Perche io sono di te,
Molto più maligno.
“Intialo! Intialo! ti prego
Di non mi più tormentare
Se vuoi aver bene,
Se no ti acquisterai
Delle pene—e questo sara
Il tuo guadagno.
“Intialo! Intialo!
Con tutta la tua furberia,
Non sai ancora
Che io son protetto
Da una bella stregha
Che mi adora.
“Intialo! Intialo!
Se più ne vuoi sapere
Vieni sta sera,
Vièni a mezza notte,
Viene di dove sei,
Te lo faro vedere,
Vieno sotto ’quel noce
E tu lo vedrai.
“Intialo! Intialo!
La mezza notte in punto,
Noi l’abbiamo,
E ti vedo (vedro) appogiato
Al noce che credi di vedere,
Vedere l’ombra mia,
E vedi l’ombra tua stessa!
“Intialo! Intialo!
Dentro al mio seno
Quattro cose tengo,
Che mi fanno vedere,
E non son veduto,
Ellera, pane,
Sale e ruta,
E la mia buona fortuna.
“Intialo! Intialo!
Non ti voglio dire,
Perche io voglio
Andare a dormire;
Ma solo ti ho fatto
Ti ho fatto vedere
Che non son’ in poter tuo,
Ma tu siei in mio potere.”
The Exorcism of Intialo.
“Intialo! it is known
When thou followest any one,
Be the victim whom he may,
Thou art ever in his way.
“Intialo—hear! if free
Thou wilt leave the road to me,
Better for thee shall it be;
If thou wilt not, from this hour
I will hold thee in my power.
“Intialo! thou shalt learn
That I’m wizard in my turn;
All the power of sorcery
So about thee I will throw—
All around, above, below—
That thou shalt accursed be,
Held in fear and agony,
And as a dog shalt follow me.
“Intialo! thou shalt know
What thou art ere thou canst go;
If thou comest here again
To torment or give me pain,
As thou’dst make a dog of me,
I will make a swine of thee.
“Intialo! sorry cheat,
Filled with hate from head to feet,
Be malignant if you will,
I am more malignant still.
“Intialo! for thy sake
I pray thee no more trouble take
To torment me, for thy gain
Will only be thy greater pain,
For so cursed thou shalt be
That I needs must pity thee.
“Intialo! now, confess
That with all thy craftiness
Thou didst not know what now I tell,
That I am protected well
By a lovely witch, and she
Is mightier far, O fiend! than thee.
“Intialo! ere we go,
If thou more of me wouldst know,
Come at midnight—I shall be
’Neath the witches’ walnut tree,
And what I shall make thee see
I trow will be enough for thee.
“Intialo! in that hour
Thou shalt truly feel my power,
And when thou at last shalt ween
That on the witches’ tree I lean,
Then to thee it shall be known
That my shadow is thine own.
“Intialo! everywhere
With me magic charms I bear,
Ivy, bread and salt and rue,
And with them my fortune too.
“Intialo! hence away,
Unto thee no more I’ll say;
Now I fain would go to sleep,
See that thou this warning keep.
I am not in power of thine,
But thou truly art in mine.”
I had the belief, derived from several writers, that Hinthial in Etruscan meant simply a ghost or revenant—the apparition of some one dead. But on mentioning my discovery of this legend to Professor Milani, the Director of the Archæological Museum in Florence, and the first of Etruscan scholars, he astonished me by declaring that he believed the word signified a shadow, and that its real meaning in its full significance had apparently been marvellously preserved in this witch-tradition. Too little is known as yet of the old Etruscan language to decide with certainty as to anything in it, but should this opinion of Professor Milani be sustained, it will appear that at least one word of the mysterious tongue has existed till now in popular tradition.
There will be very few of my readers who will not be struck, as I was, with the remarkable resemblance of the terrible curse uttered by Intialo to the invocation in Byron’s tragedy of “Manfred.” It is like it in form, spirit, and, in many places, even in the very words. That there was, however, no knowledge of the English poem by the Italian witch-poet, and therefore no imitation, is plain from intrinsic evidence. As the question is interesting, I will here give the Incantation from “Manfred”:
Incantation.
“When the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,
And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answered owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine
With a power and with a sign.
“Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which shall not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gathered in a cloud,
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.
“Though thou see’st me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye,
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turned around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.
“And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse,
And a spirit of the air
Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun
Which shall make thee wish it done.
“From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatched the snake,
For there it coiled as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.
“By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathomed depths of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy,
By the perfection of thine art,
Which passed for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others’ pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee, and compel
Thyself to be thy proper hell!
“And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Not to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny,
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee:
O’er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been passed—now wither!”
The Italian poem forms, in its first and second parts, a drama as complete as that of “Manfred,” and, as I hope to render clear, one more consistent to the leading idea, or, as critics were wont to say, “more coherent in the unities.” This idea in the one, as in the other, is that of a powerful sorcerer assailed by a fiend in the form of remorse, and that with the most aggravating and insulting terms of contempt. In “Manfred” the persecutor tells his victim that he shall be his own hell, for that of all poisons his own evil heart is the worst. The Italian, more direct and less metaphysical still, alludes, in the accusation by the spirit, to no other punishment save that of conscience, and declares the magician to be poisoned through and through in himself:
“Tu sei cattivo e scelerato,
Tu sei avvelenato
Nel cuore e nell anima,”
and bids him go forth to be for ever pursued by the avenger.
Byron’s poem is entirely based on sorcery, and is intended to set forth the tremendous mental struggles of a mind which has risen above mankind with supernatural power, which assails him with remorse. In the first place he simply goes to sleep; in the grand finale he resists, like Don Juan, or, as the saying is, “dies game”—“only this, and nothing more”—leaving all idea of an end, object, moral, or system, entirely in the dark. “Manfred” is merely dramatic for the sake of stage effect, and only excellent in impressing us with the artistic skill of the author. Its key is art for the sake of art, and effect on anybody, no matter who. Within this limit it is most admirable.
In both the Italian and English poems the one persecuted makes his strong point of departure from the discovery or knowledge that the persecuted is not one whom he has injured, but simply a mocking and tormenting sprite. Thus the former text declares that when he finds he is pursued simply by Intialo, the shadow, which we may here translate “his own imagination,” he rallies with a tremendous counter-curse in which far more is meant than meets the eye. The grand mission of the magus or sorcerer in all the occult lore of all antiquity, whether he appear as Buddha or any other man of men, is to conquer all enemies by tremendous power won by penance or by iron will. A favourite means of tormenting the enemy or fiend is to awaken the conscience of the magician, or, what is the same thing, to tempt him to sin, as Satan did Christ. But even conscience loses its power when we feel that the foe is exaggerating our sins, and only urging them for torment’s sake, and especially when these sins are of a kind which from a certain standpoint or code, are not sins at all.
And here we are brought to a subject so strange and witch-like that it is difficult to discuss or make clear. It is evident enough in “Manfred” that the great crime was the hero’s forbidden love for his sister Astarte. This it is which crushes him. But it does not appear from the Italian (save to those deeply learned in the darker secrets of sorcery) why or how it is that the one persecuted so suddenly revives and defies the spirit, turning, as it were, his own power against him. In explaining this, I do not in the least conjecture, guess, or infer anything; I give the explanation as it was understood by the narrator, and as confirmed by other legends and traditions. It is this:
Michelet, in La Sorciére, which amid much lunacy or folly contains many truths and ingenious perceptions, has explained that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages was a kind of mad despairing revolt against the wrongs of society, of feudalism, and the Church. It was in very truth the precursor of Protestantism. Under the name of religion conscience had been abused, and artificial sins, dooming to hell, been created out of every trifle, and out of almost every form of natural instincts. The reaction from this (which was a kind of nihilism or anarchy), was to declare the antithetic excess of free will. One of the forms of this revolt was the belief that the greatest sorcerers were born (ex filio et matre) from the nearest relations, and that to dare and violate all such ties was to conquer by daring will the greatest power. It was the strongest defiance of the morality taught by the Church, therefore one of the highest qualifications for an iron-willed magician. It is specially pointed out in the legend of Diana that she began by such a sin, and so came to be queen of the witches; and the same idea of entire emancipation or illumination, or freedom from all ties, is the first step to the absolute free will which constitutes the very basis of all magic. This, which is repugnant to humanity, was actually exalted by the Persian Magi to a duty or religious principle, and it was the same in Egypt as regarded “first families.” The sorcerer pursued by Intialo bases all his power to resist on the mere fact that he is beloved by a beautiful witch. This is the Astarte of the Italian drama, or a sister—the terrible tie which shows that a man is above conscience, and free from all fear of the powers that be, whether of earth or air. By it his triumph is complete. He surmounts the accusation of being without morals by utterly denying their existence from a higher or illuminated point of view. The magus claims to rank with the gods, and if a divinity creates mankind as his children, and then has a child by a woman, he is in the same state as the sorcerer, according to wizards.
If any reproach attaches to the employment of such an element in poetry, then Byron and Shelley are far more to blame than the Italian witch-poet, who veiled his allusion with much greater care than they did, and who had the vast excuse of sincere belief, while their highest aim was mere art. The wizard-poet has his heart in this faith, as in a religion, and he is one with his hero. Manfred is at best only a broken-down magician who presents a few boldly dramatic daring traits—the Italian sorcerer, who is far more defiant and fearless, conquers. “I am more malignant than thou art,” is a terrible utterance; so is the tone of affected pity for the baffled tormentor, in which we detect a shade of sarcasm based on overwhelming triumph. This feeling, be it observed, progresses, crescendo forte, gradually and very artistically, from the first verse to the last. Intialo has threatened to make the victim a sorry cur who comes at a call; the sorcerer replies that he will make “a swine’s snout” of Intialo. Finally, he dares the fiend to meet him at midnight at the great Witches’ Sabbat, at the dread walnut-tree of Benevento. Here the threats reach an ingenious and terrible climax, though the form in which they are expressed is only quite clear to the initiated. The sorcerer says, “When thou thinkest that thou see’st my shadow thou wilt behold thine own,” or in other words, “You who have sought to torment me by a shadow shall yourself be mocked by finding that you are only mine.” This climax of daring the fiend to meet him at Benevento, at the tremendous and terrible rendezvous of all the devils, witches, and sorcerers, and then and there trying conclusions with him in delusion and magic, or a strife of shadows, while leaning against the awful tree itself, which is the central point of the Italian Domdaniel, is magnificently imagined.
In Goethe’s “Faust,” as in Byron’s “Manfred,” the hero is a magician, but he is not in either true to the name or character. The great magus of early ages, even like the black Voodoo of America, had it clearly before him all the time that his mission or business, above all things, was to develop an indomitable will superior to that of men or spirits. Every point is gained by force, or by will and penance. In real sorcery there is no such thing as a pact with a devil, and becoming his slave after a time. This is a purely later-Roman invention, a result of the adoption of the mixture of Jewish monotheism and Persian dualism, which formed the Catholic Church. In Goethe’s “Faust” we have the greatest weakness, and an extreme confusion of character. The conclusion of the tale is contradictory or absurd, and the difficulty is solved with the aid of a Deus ex machina. The hero is a sorcerer, and there is not a trace of true sorcery or magianism or tremendous will and work in the whole drama. Beautiful things are said and done, but, take it for all in all, it is a grand promenade which leads to nothing. 251
In the Italian legend, brief and rude as it is, there appears a tremendous power worked out with great consistency. The demon or spirit, intent on causing remorse or despair (ad affretare il rimorso), threatens the sorcerer with terrible maledictions. And these words, if we regard their real meaning and spirit, have never been surpassed in any poem.
And we should note here that the Italian sorcerer who subdues the devil by simple will and pluck is no Manfred or Faust drawn from the religious spirit of the Middle Ages. He belongs to the Etruscan age, or to that of the ancient Magi; he meets malediction with malediction, spell with spell, curse with curse, injury with injury, sarcasm and jeer with the same; he insults the devil, calling him his slave:
“Perche io sono di te—molto più maligno.”
Until in the end they change parts, and the demon becomes the one tormented. Therefore there is in this legend, with all its rudeness, a conception which is so grand, as regards setting forth the possible power of man, and the eritis sicut deus of modern science, that it is in unity and fulness far beyond any variant of the same subject.
That this is of great antiquity is clear, for out of this enchanted forest of Italian witchcraft and mystical sorcery there never yet came anything, great or small, which was not at least of the bronze, if not of the neolithic age.
Truly, when the chief character in a tradition of the old Etruscan land bears an Etruscan name, or that of a shadow called a shadow, we may well conclude that it is not of yesterday. So all things rise and bloom and pass away here on this earth to winter and decay, and are as phantoms which
“Come like shadows, so depart.”
For a last word, “Manfred” and “Faust” are only works of art, intended to “interest” or amuse or charm the reader, and as such they are great. They are simply dramas or show-pieces, which also give a high idea of the artistic skill of their writers. “Intialo” sets forth the great idea of the true sorcerer, in which they both fail, and carries it out logically to a tremendous triumph. It is the very quintessence of all heresies, and of the first great heresy, eritis sicut deus.
There will not be wanting one or two critics of the low kind who take their hints from the disavowals of the author to declare that his book is just what it is not, who will write that I think I have discovered a better poet than Keats in Marietta Pery, and a far greater than Goethe or Byron in the unknown author of the invocation to “Intialo.” But all that I truly mean is that the former is nearer to old tradition, and more succinct than the English bard—“only this and nothing more”—while in “Intialo” we have given, as no one ever expressed it, the true ideal of the magician who, overcoming all qualms of conscience, whether innate or suggested, and trampling under foot all moral human conventions, rises to will, and victory over all enemies, especially the demons of the threshold. As a poem, I no more claim special merit for it than I would for Marietta’s; 253 indeed, to the very considerable number of “highly cultivated” people who only perceive poetry in form and style, and cannot find it in the grandest conceptions unless they are elegantly expressed, what I have given in this connection will not appear as poetry at all.