Schevill — Studies in Cervantes. 477 



tion.^ And when Christianity began to spread through the Empire, 

 it was natural that Virgil's prestige as a poet and sage should be 

 readily accepted and transmitted by the teachers of the new religion, 

 who had been educated in Latin schools. They even went farther. 

 In their eagerness to turn an authority among the ancients into a 

 luminary that would serve the Church, theologians interpreted the 

 poet as a semi-Christian prophet, and pronounced his fourth eclogue 

 an inspired prediction of the coming of Christ. Finally, with his 

 prestige as a poet, sage and prophet so great among the learned, it 

 was inevitable that a Virgil of a different type should grow inde- 

 pendently among the masses who were not in touch with the little 

 learning of the darker Middle Ages. This was the Virgil of folk- 

 lore, a man of superhuman powers, an enchanter and magician, 

 whose mythical history has been treated in a masterly fashion by 

 Comparetti- and touches the subject in hand but little. The present 

 article will therefore be devoted only to the Virgil of literature, 

 whose influence as a romancer concerns us most. 



It is worth considering at this point to what extent Virgil's repu- 

 tation as a poet would have been curtailed, if his name had not issued 

 from the Middle Ages linked inseparably with that of Dante. In 



^ Cf. D. Comparetti, Virgil im Mittelalter aus dem Italienischen iibersetzt 

 von Hans Diitschke (Leipzig, 1875), pp. 69, 91; M. Landau, Die Quellen des 

 Dekamcroii (Stuttgart, 1884), 2te Auflage, p. 290: "Der fronime Aeneas 

 liatte so viel Aehnlichkeit mit den Helden der Ritterromane, die Aeneis und 

 die Eklogen haben im Verhiiltniss zur Ilias und Odyssee so viel Christ- 

 liches in sich, dass Virgil und nicht Homer der Lieblingsdicliter des Mittel- 

 alters werden musste." Cf. Bartsch, Albrecht von Halberstadt und Ovid 

 ini Mittelalter (Quedlinburg u. Leipzig, 1861), p. xxi; p. cxxii. Virgil 

 was also prized more than Homer by the humanists in the loth century; 

 cf. W. Creizenach, GescMchte des neueren Dramas, Vol. II (Halle, 1901), 

 p. 370. 



^ Cf . op. cit., with the original title, Virr/ilio nel Medio Evo (Liverno, 

 1872). There is also an English translation, Virgil in the Middle Ages, 

 translated by E. F. M. Beneeke (London, 1895) ; other references to Virgil 

 the magician are: Eneas Silvio Piccolomini, Eistoria de dos amantes, 

 reprinted by E.. Foulche-Delbosc (Barcelona, 1907), p. 13: Virgilio suhido 

 ]>or un cordel, etc.; Juan Rodriguez del Padron also implies that the poet 

 and the magician are the same person (cf. below, p. 482, n. 4) ; in the 

 Arcipreste de Talavera, {Corvacho 6 reprobacion del amor mundano) by 

 Alfonso Martinez de Toledo (1438), reprinted by the "Sociedad de Bibliofilos 

 EspaQoles," Vol. XXXV, Virgil, the enchanter, is several times mentioned 

 as a victim of earthly love, pp. 20, 40, 54; Comedia de Calisto y Melibea 

 (1499), reprinted by R. Foulche-Delbosc in the "Bibliotheca hispanica," 



