Di mie tenere frondi altro lavoro Credea mostrarte; e qual fero pianeta Ne' nvidio insieme, o mio nobil tesoro?3
I present the public with my latest discoveries in the slight Sibylline pages. Scattered and unconnected as they were, I have been obliged to add links, and model the work into a consistent form. But the main substance rests on the truths contained in these poetic rhapsodies, and the divine intuition which the Cumaean damsel obtained from heaven.
I have often wondered at the subject of her verses, and at the English dress of the Latin poet. Sometimes I have thought that, obscure and chaotic as they are, they owe their present form to me, their decipherer. As if we should give
1. Language of ancient Babylon, famed for its (1304?1374): 'From my tender leaves, I thought astronomical and astrological knowledge. to show you a different work, and what fierce 2. Open to the sky. planet ended our being together, oh, my noble 3. Quoted from the Italian of a sonnet by Petrarch treasure?'
.
THE MORTAL IMMORTAL / 96 1
to another artist, the painted fragments which form the mosaic copy of Raphael's Transfiguration in St. Peter's; he would put them together in a form, whose mode would be fashioned by his own peculiar mind and talent.4 Doubtless the leaves of the Cumaean Sibyl have suffered distortion and diminution of interest and excellence in my hands. My only excuse for thus transforming them, is that they were unintelligible in their pristine condition.
My labours have cheered long hours of solitude, and taken me out of a world, which has averted its once benignant face from me, to one glowing with imagination and power. Will my readers ask how I could find solace from the narration of misery and woeful change? This is one of the mysteries of our nature, which holds full sway over me, and from whose influence I cannot escape. I confess, that I have not been unmoved by the development of the tale; and that I have been depressed, nay, agonized, at some parts of the recital, which I have faithfully transcribed from my materials. Yet such is human nature, that the excitement of mind was dear to me, and that the imagination, painter of tempest and earthquake, or, worse, the stormy and ruin-fraught passions of man, softened my real sorrows and endless regrets, by clothing these fictitious ones in that ideality, which takes the mortal sting from pain.
I hardly know whether this apology is necessary. For the merits of my adaptation and translation must decide how far I have well bestowed my time and imperfect powers, in giving form and substance to the frail and attenuated Leaves of the Sibyl.
1824 1826
The Mortal Immortal1
A Tale
JULY 16, 1833.?This is a memorable anniversary for me; on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year! The Wandering Jew?2?certainly not. More than eighteen centuries have passed over his head. In comparison with him, I am a very young Immortal.
Am I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it. 1 detected a gray hair amidst my brown locks this very day?that surely signifies decay. Yet it may have remained concealed there for three hundred years? for some persons have become entirely white-headed before twenty years of age.
I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. I will tell my story, and so contrive to pass some few hours of a long eternity, become so wearisome to me. For ever! Can it be? to live for ever! I have heard of enchantments, in
4. The Italian Renaissance artist Raphael's paint-consequences of scientific ambition with Shelley's ing of the transfiguration of Christ is copied in best-known novel. With a certain irony, given its mosaic on the altarpiece of the Cappella Clemen-original setting in a volume that its publisher martina of St. Peter's in Rome. keted as a lasting memento of affection that might I. Cf. Keats's Endymion 1.843^14: 'if this earthly be purchased for a loved one, 'The Mortal Immorlove has power to make / Men's being mortal, tal' also examines the question of whether love can immortal.' 'The Mortal Immortal' is one of the survive time's ravages if beauty does not. sixteen stories Shelley during her career contrib-2. The man who, according to legend, taunted uted to The Keepsake, a gift book published Christ on the road to the crucifixion and was annually between 1828 and 1857. This tale shares therefore condemned to wander the earth until its first-person narrative form and interest in the Judgment Day.
.
96 2 / MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
which the victims were plunged into a deep sleep, to wake, after a hundred years, as fresh as ever: I have heard of the Seven Sleepers3?thus to be immortal would not be so burthensome: but, oh! the weight of never- ending time? the tedious passage of the still-succeeding hours! How happy was the fabled Nourjahad!4- -But to my task.
All the world has heard of Cornelius Agrippa.5 His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me. All the world has also heard of his scholar, who, unawares, raised the foul fiend during his master's absence, and was destroyed by him.6 The report, true or false, of this accident, was attended with many inconveniences to the renowned philosopher. All his scholars at once deserted him?his servants disappeared. He had no one near him to put coals on his ever-burning fires while he slept, or to attend to the changeful colours of his medicines while he studied. Experiment after experiment failed, because one pair of hands was insufficient to complete them: the dark spirits laughed at him for not being able to retain a single mortal in his service.
I was then very young?very poor?and very much in love. 1 had been for about a year the pupil of Cornelius, though I was absent when this accident took place. On my return, my friends implored me not to return to the alchymist's abode. I trembled as I listened to the dire tale they told; I required no second warning; and when Cornelius came and offered me a purse of gold if I would remain under his roof, I felt as if Satan himself tempted me. My teeth chattered?my hair stood on end:?I ran off as fast as my trembling knees would permit.
My failing steps were directed whither for two years they had every evening been attracted,?a gently bubbling spring of pure living waters, beside which lingered a dark-haired girl, whose beaming eyes were fixed on the path I was accustomed each night to tread. I cannot remember the hour when I did not love Bertha; we had been neighbours and playmates from infancy?her parents, like mine, were of humble life, yet respectable?our attachment had been a source of pleasure to them. In an evil hour, a malignant fever carried off both her father and mother, and Bertha became an orphan. She would have found a home beneath my paternal roof, but, unfortunately,
