Robert Wagman

CHAPTER I

To the very eminent and learned doctor

Paul Zacchias

from Leo Allatius

with greetings.

My most illustrious Sir, such is the nature of human mind that neglecting what is recent and what, perceived firsthand, it can judge with certainty rather than random speculation, it directs all of its efforts at what is most remote and has long disappeared, nor can be recovered by conjecture: that is what it tries to fish up from the depths of antiquity like a seer, using silly guesses and a crystal ball that does not report the truth but something far from it. As a consequence, scholars often make fools of themselves and, while they think that they are appreciated by others, they are ridiculed by the very people whose good will they seek and whom they flatter. There will come a time in the future when our own age will also be zealously studied by those aspiring to the fame of learned men—individuals whom we, who live and see in this world, would consider not only as jokers but as utter madmen, since they will report things that are most remote and most disconnected from the truth. From these persons I would like to learn what is there, in antiquity, worthy of such study and admiration as described above, which in our time could not be more plausibly verified cccand more extensively documented. In this spinning wheel which is human life, ethics, customs, virtues, vices, and interests come round and round again, often much improved. This could be a much broader topic for discussion, how unfairly we treat our own time, which is in no way inferior to the most ancient times, when we neglect this age and flee to the past, letting the present fade away, enfolded in the darkness of silence, so that soon we will need a Delian diver to recapture it; and how careless we are about our own affairs, we who despise all that is ours and chase after what belonged to others. Anyway, just hinting at these things is enough; for I am addressing Zacchias, one who can teach others, rather than be taught by them. To finish my earlier thought, I always had in mind to write a study on vampires and witches and the silly superstitions of the people about such things. I was inhibited by the monumental works of other famous authors who treated this subject in the most minute detail; there was nearly nothing in antiquity that they have not examined with the greatest attention. I was inhibited by Zacchias’ own erudition, who has studied, discussed, and ridiculed all these things, or at least the more important ones, in his Medical-Legal Questions— a study of Herculean proportions.  Or am I then going to be so lazy as not to offer anything which I might oblige my friend Zacchias and repay the gratitude which I owe to him in great quantity? The ancient material, and what we gather from other writers’ works, is surely not enough, since he knows all that and is an expert in it. So, I resorted to the beliefs of our own time about Striges and to other superstitions of contemporary Greece; just as they are, I collected them in one book, and I am now offering them to your sharp judgement. You will see how much that evil enemy of the human race has always fooled the common folk and confused it with irrational thoughts, so as to distract it from the true worship of God. If anything lacks elegance—and I have no doubt that much will—do correct me, as well as my writings. It will be a task for your education and intelligence to dress the shapeless product of my mind in more brilliant and elegant clothes, so that it may come to its father in a more noble and pleasant form.

NOTES

Forthcoming