Mescaline

“ Polyphontes
O Merope, the trouble on thy face
Tells me enough thou know'st the news which all
Messenia speaks! the prince, thy son, is dead.
Not from my lips should consolation fall;
To offer that, I come not; but to urge,
Even after news of this sad death, our league.
Yes, once again I come; I will not take
This morning's angry answer for thy last.
To the Messenian kingdom thou and I
Are the sole claimants left; what cause of strife
Lay in thy son is buried in his grave.
Most honourably I meant, I call the Gods [423]
To witness, offering him return and power ”

“ Still others could be seen with the burning slow-match firing cannon, from which issued monstrous members that were buried with lightning swiftness between the wide-spread thighs of a frenzied she-devil.
The most spiteful of the lot bound a Messalina down by her four limbs and indulged in her sight in the most frightful sexual excesses. The unhappy woman foamed at the mouth, twisted about, raved for a pleasure that was denied her. ”

“ The Roman empress Messalina was never half so famous for her lust, as you are for your chastity; nor the most christian king’s favourite, madam Maintenon, more eminent for her parts, than you are for your cunning; for nothing is a greater manifestation of a woman’s conduct, than for her to be vicious without mistrust, and to gratify her looser inclinations without discovery ”

“ Here Lady Meskell, somewhat to my surprise, burst into peals of laughter. She sat down and rubbed her fat hands together cheerfully. “You are a very good girl,” she said. “I thought you were from the first. But I was just making sure. No; unromantic though it may seem, there is no liaison between myself and the man—he happens to be a cook—whom you saw leaving the garden. But amid your mistakes you made one or two very happy guesses. It is true that he took my pearls, and that I knew all along he had taken than, and that I knew his name. ”

“ Thirty battles were subsequently fought, and several years of incessant conflict passed, before Britain was fairly reduced to the condition of a Roman province.
Messalina, the wife of Claudius, has attained the unenviable notoriety of having been the worst, the most shameless woman earth has ever known. The renown of her profligacy has survived the lapse of eighteen centuries. The story of her life can now never be told: modern civilization would not endure the recital. ”

“ Messalina, in the gardens of the palace, was enacting a Bacchanalian scene. Men were treading the grapes and wine was flowing into casks; women in the scant attire of Bacchantes were dancing around them; and Messalina, with the symbolic thyrsus in her hand, joined in the revelry, accompanied by Silius, who was crowned with ivy. The utmost licentiousness of speech and action was the order of the day. At last, Vettius Valens, who himself had been a lover of the empress, climbed to the top of a high tree. ”

“ While the emperor was engaged in these and similar pursuits and occupations, Messalina went on in her career of dissipation and indulgence from bad to worse, growing more and more bold and open every day. She lived in a constant round of entertainments and of gayety—sometimes receiving companies of guests at her own palace, and sometimes making visits with a large retinue of attendants and friends, at the house of Silius. ”

“ XLIV. Messene.—From Kalamata, the probable site of the ancient Pharae, the road to Messene runs north-west across the fertile Messenian plain between hedges of huge fantastically-shaped cactuses and groves of fig-trees, olives, and vines. In front of us loom nearer and nearer the twin peaks of Ithome and Eva rising boldly and abruptly from a single base on the western side of the plain, and forming the natural citadel, as it were, of the whole country. As we near their base we quit the dusty highway and strike westward up the mountain-side by devious and rocky paths. ”

“ The artistry extended to the magnificent body, which had broad shoulders that tapered to slim hips and long, panther-muscled legs. The delicate feet were shod in brass, as the gods of old Egypt were reputed to be shod.
IV
Revanche, who was seeing for the first time the Messinan's work, scrutinized with cynical elation the creature who had landed closest to him. Awed despite himself, he saw that a fast-whirling halo hovered perhaps a foot above the noble head. Every five seconds the luminous ring changed color. ”

“ The scion of the Drusi reddened to his brows, but the bystanders broke in upon his reply by surging closer around the table, and shouting, "The Messala! the Messala!"
"Men of the Tiber," Messala continued, wresting a box with the dice in it from a hand near-by, "who is he most favored of the gods? A Roman. Who is he lawgiver of the nations? A Roman. Who is he, by sword right, the universal master?" ”

“ Aristomenes and Theoclus, aware that Messenia at length must fall, yet concealed the fulfilment of the oracle, and roused the courage of their comrades to desperation: even the women showed that they preferred death to captivity, and excited the men to higher daring by the participation of their danger. The night passed without advantage to either party, but at day–break the rain poured down in still greater fury, and drove in the faces of the Messenians ”

“ Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality. When he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herod condescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea. For the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled with our customs and God. As you would have had me do, I parted with him finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with more certainty if there be just ground for the Roman’s contempt. In what am I his inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I, even in Cæsar’s presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? ”

“ The duumvir left him vastly rich. He has a passion for arms, and thinks of nothing but war. Maxentius admitted him into his family, and he was to have taken ship with us, but we lost him at Ravenna. Nevertheless he arrived safely. We heard of him this morning. Perpol! Instead of coming to the palace or going to the citadel, he dropped his baggage at the khan, and hath disappeared again."
At the beginning of the speech Messala listened with polite indifference; as it proceeded, he became more attentive; at the conclusion, he took his hand from the dice-box, and called out, "Ho, my Caius! ”

“ You think of the Messias as a mighty king, who will make Israel great in the eyes of the world, and free it from the power of Rome: but I say to you that even as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent on the tree, so shall I, the Messias, be lifted up on the Cross and die. ”

“ We must admit in his justification that in this matter he had not been particularly fortunate; for fate had given him to wife a lady who, notwithstanding her illustrious ancestors,—she belonged to one of the greatest families of Rome, related to the family of Augustus,—was not exactly suited to be his companion in the imperial dignity. Every one knows that the name of Valeria Messalina has become in history synonymous with all the faults and all the vices of which a woman can be guilty. ”

“ Some say he scents as doth a dog, and that is why he works his head about from side to side snuffing the wind. When I went forth he detached two of his slaves to follow—and they went as far as myself and stood watching outside the door of the knight Celer, and when I came forth they were still there, and when I returned to the Atrium of Vesta, I found Messalinus peering with his sightless eyes round the corner. ”

“ They looked wonderingly at them and said 'Meskin' so often and so pityingly that I am sure they thought I had leprosy all over. Then they wished to see my head, and having taken off my hat, my hair had to be taken down. They examined my shoes, turned up my gaiters, stuck their fingers down my collar, and wished to undress me, so I rose and said very civilly, 'Peace to you, oh women, I am going to sleep now,' and retired. ”

“ The little woman spoke the truth, for always since his coming to Mezelais she had viewed the great conqueror as through an awful haze of forerunning rumor, twin to that golden vapor which enswathes a god and transmutes whatever in corporeal man had been a defect into some divine and hitherto unguessed-at excellence ”

“ So, too, in the exposition of Messalina's character the librettist, while constructing an entirely fanciful tale, and omitting all reference to the most notorious of her amours (the one which at the last wrung the decree of her death from the generally complacent Claudius) , nevertheless managed to indicate Juvenal's description in the song which Harés sings against her, a recital by Myrrho, a scene in the slums, which she visits in disguise, and where she is rescued from a gang of roisterers by Helion, and in the scene of her wooing of the gladiator. ”

“ From association Messala, in boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have become a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influences that ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much for him. I do not wonder at the change; yet”—her voice fell—“he might have dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel nature which in youth can forget its first loves.” ”

“ Mechtild was now the servant only, and not the bride of Christ. She was a Beguine, not a nun. The accomplished daughter of nobles, she was the companion of the destitute and lowly. It was better thus, better to be lowly and despised, even as Christ 19was despised. All these thoughts of dismay, rapture, weariness, and exaltation, rushed and clashed through the tired breast of Mechtild. Then, for a second time, the trance crept over her, and she sank unconscious into the ever-present arms of God. ”

“ It is far from clear, then, that thou art the Messiah promised to our fathers; perhaps it is an evil spirit which, through thee, operates these wonders before our eyes, and imposes upon the credulity of the vulgar; so many deceivers have already appeared in Judea, who, giving themselves out for the great Prophet who is to come, have seduced the people, and at last drawn down upon themselves the punishment due to their imposture. Keep us no longer in doubt: if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, and in such a way as that room shall no longer be left either for doubt or for mistake. ”

“ The Messenian woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her embonpoint,” (this may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia) ; “she has regular features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of mind.” In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant and uneducated; but, he says, “music and dancing seem to have been taught them by nature.” ”

“ It is not more unlikely that in those earlier appearances, on occasions when no Divine effulgence was exhibited, his visible appearance should be like that of angelic messengers, than that theirs should be like that of man, or that his should be so when literally incarnate. And if the Deity has ever appeared visibly to man, it was indubitably to the patriarchs and prophets as the Messiah, under the designations and on the occasions heretofore referred to, and publicly in Judea at the period of his literal incarnation. ”

“ She demands a great deal of courting, a great deal of ardor, a great deal of passion; she has got very warm blood herself, and, if I am not mistaken, she is a great-granddaughter of that beautiful Roman lady, Messalina. ”

“ No individual can be governed by the ideas that are prevalent in the society in which he lives and, at the same time, dispense with the methods ordinarily employed by that society. The Romans of the period which we are now reviewing believed that the best, as well as the easiest, way in which to placate an enemy or to outwit a rival was to destroy him. Messalina had no desire to do better than her surroundings warranted ”

“ All are under the power of the magnetiser; it matters not in what state of drowsiness they may be, the sound of his voice—a look, a motion of his hand—brings them out of it. Among the patients in convulsions there are always observed a great many women, and very few men." [9]
These experiments lasted for about five months. They had hardly commenced, before Mesmer, alarmed at the loss both of fame and profit, determined to return to Paris. Some patients of rank and fortune, enthusiastic believers in his doctrine, had followed him to Spa. ”

“ Could he intend that we should eat our food with perpetual compunction, and unceasing disquietude—that every morsel should be purchased with a pang, and every meal empoisoned with remorse;—and to increase our consternation to the utmost, would he have imperatively declared he would require the blood of every slain beast at our hands, and have inspired his Prophet to announce unto us most solemnly that "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man?" ”

“ Agrippina continued, therefore, to live at Rome, in high favor with the court, for several years,—her little son advancing all the time in age and in maturity, until at length he became twelve years old. At this time, another great change took place in his own and his mother's condition. Messalina became herself, by her wickedness and infatuation, the means of raising her rival into her own place as wife of the emperor. ”