A treatise of magic incantations / translated from the Latin of Christianus Pazig (circa 1700) ; edited by Edmund Goldsmid.

  • Pazig, Christianus.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise of magic incantations / translated from the Latin of Christianus Pazig (circa 1700) ; edited by Edmund Goldsmid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    extinguished and extruded. For we do not much admire the Turks, whose method of recovering fugitive slaves is thus described by Robertus : * The name of the slave written on a scroll is sus¬ pended in his place of shelter, then they assail his head with direful curses and imprecations. Then, by the agency of the demons, such an effect is wrought on the fugitive that he thinks either lions or dragons will attack him on his way, or that the sea or the rivers will drown him, or that everything will be shrouded in the blackest dark¬ ness, and so he returns to his master scared back by these bug-bears. These Turks, I say, we do not admire much, for who is there who knows not that their minds are dreadfully benighted by the densest shades of ignorance. But, at the same time, that those who ought to be imbued with better principles suffer themselves to be branded with this mark is no trifling proof of human perversity. For since women by an instinct which is not very laudable are inclined to volubility of speech, and the women of the lower classes especially are quite incapable of bridling their tongue, they attribute, in consequence to their preposterous eloquence such a moving power, that they feel persuaded in their own minds that they thereby produce effects dreadful * In Goclen. HeautontSect, xvii., § io.