Virgil As A Physician, Or Virgil And The Mouse

“Now to signify destruction and death they paint a _mouse_. For it
gnaweth all things, and works ruin.”—HORI APOLLI: _Hieroglyphica_;
_Rome_, .

There once lived in Florence a young gentleman—_un gran signore_—who wedded a beautiful young lady to whom he was passionately attached, as she indeed was for a time to him. But “fickle and fair is nothing rare,” and it came to pass that before long she gave her love again to an intimate friend of her husband. And the latter did not indeed perceive the cause, but he was much grieved at the indifference to him which his wife began to show.

Then the wife began to tell her lover how her husband had scolded her for her neglect, and how much afraid she was lest their intrigue would be discovered, and that she was so uneasy that she was ready to poison her spouse “if she could only get rid of him!”

The lover replied that there were many ways to get rid of a man without really killing him, for that a violent death would lead to suspicion, inquiry, scandal, and perhaps legal punishment. And then he hinted that a better method would be to consult a witch.

The lady lost no time in running to one, to whom she told her whole story, and what she wanted, and as she began by paying a large fee, the sorceress promised she should have her wish.

Then the witch prepared with magic skill a flask of water, and a powder. The water she gave to the wife, and bade her sprinkle it over her husband’s clothes. But she changed herself into a mouse, and having been carried to the bedroom which the married couple occupied, she gnawed a hole in the mattress, and crawling in, dragged after her the bag, and so remained hidden.

When the husband went to bed, there came over him an utter weakness and sickness, so that he lay in pain as if dead, and this grew worse day by day. His parents in vain called in the first physicians, and every remedy was resorted to without result.

Then Virgilio, who knew much and suspected all the rest of this affair, was angry that so vile a woman and her gallant should inflict such torture on an excellent and innocent man, and resolved to have a hand in the affair.

Therewith he dressed himself as a _medico_, or doctor, from some distant land, saying that he had heard of this extraordinary case of illness, and would like to see the sufferer. To which the parents replied that he was welcome to do so, since all the professors of medicine in Florence could make nothing of it.

The doctor looked steadily for some time at the patient, who appeared to be in such utter prostration and misery as might have moved the hardest heart. By him sat his wife, pretending to weep, but counting to herself with pleasure the time which would pass before her husband should die—giving now and then a suspicious glance at the new-comer.

Then Virgilio said to the wife:

“Signora, I beg you to leave the room for a while. I must be alone with this man!”

Whereupon she, with a great show of tears and passion, declared she would not leave the room, because her husband might die at any minute, and she could never forgive herself were she to be absent, and so on. To which Virgilio angrily replied, that she might depart in peace, with the assurance that her husband would be cured. So she went out, cursing him in her heart, if there was a chance that he could do as he declared.

Then Virgilio took a mirror which he had brought with him, and placing it before the eyes of the invalid, bade him look at it as steadily and as long as he could. The young man did so, and then said, as if in despair:

“For me there is no remedy, O doctor, for what you show me is worse than my disorder, as I supposed it to be. Truly I see death, and not myself.”

“Courage!” replied Virgilio. “You shall be cured.”

“Cure me,” he answered, “and you shall have all that I possess.”

“Nay, I will cure you first,” said Virgilio, “and then settle on easier terms.”

The patient looked steadily at the mirror. Virgilio rapped thrice with a wand, when there suddenly leaped from the bed a mouse, which uttered three horrible, piercing screams. The doctor bade the invalid continue to look steadily at himself in the mirror, and for his life not to cease doing so. Without turning round, the doctor ordered the mouse to enter the bed and lick up and bring away with her on her tongue all the water which the wife had sprinkled on the clothes. And this done, he bade her bring again out of the bed all the powder which she had placed there. Which being effected, he ordered the mouse to make of it a pellet, and devour it; but here she resisted, for to do that meant death to her and a cure to the invalid.

But the doctor was inflexible, and she had to obey. Nor had she begun to eat it before he bade the husband rise, which he did, feeling perfectly recovered, though much confused at such a sudden change.

Then Virgilio ordered the mouse to mount the bed, and lo! she changed to a woman, for she was, of course, the witch who had done all this devil’s work. And the sorceress bade them call parents and wife and all. And when they came the witch said:

“Evil my life has been, and evil will be the death which in a few minutes will come to me; yet am I not so evil as this woman, who would have killed by the worst suffering the husband who loved her. For hell hath many who are bad, but the worst are they who return evil for good. And he who hath ended this thing by his power is the great Virgilio, who is the lord of magic in all this land.”

Then she told, step by step, how the wife had turned her heart from her husband, almost as soon as she was married, and wished to kill him, and had paid her to bewitch him. Then Virgilio opened the window and the witch indeed died, or it was the last seen of her, for with a horrible howl she vanished in the night, flying away.

The husband recovered, and would have given Virgilio all his wealth, but he would accept nothing but the young man’s friendship. And the guilty wife was imprisoned for life in a castle, far away in the mountains and alone.