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But Belphagor is only unfortunate, and in no respect guilty; nor did anything occur during his abode on earth that testified to the power of woman in leading us to final condemnation. To this criticism Mr. Thomas Roscoe replies that “part of the humour of the story seems to consist in Belphagor’s earthly career being cut short before he had served the full term of his apprenticeship.
Barnabe Riche inserted it in his collection of narratives in 1581, and we meet it again later in the following plays: Grim, the Collier of Croydon, ascribed to Ulpian Fulwell ; The Devil and his Dame by P. M. Houghton ; Machiavel and the Devil by Daborne and Henslowe ; The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson ; and Belphagor, or the Marriage of the Devil . In France the story was treated in verse by La Fontaine , and in Germany it served the Nuremberg poet Hans Sachs as the subject for a farce .
This story of the devil Belphagor, who was sent by his infernal chief Pluto up to earth, where he married an earthly wife, but finally left her in disgust to go back to hell, is also of mediaeval origin. It was first printed by Giovanni Brevio in 1545, and appeared for the second time with the name of Machiavelli in 1549, twenty-two years after the death of the diabolical statesman.
Poor Belphagor having signed these conditions and received the money, forthwith came into the world, and having set up his equipage, with a numerous train of servants, he made a very splendid entrance into Florence.
The lot fell upon the arch-devil Belphagor, who, previous to the Fall, had enjoyed the rank of archangel in a higher world. Though he received his commission with a very ill grace, he nevertheless felt himself constrained by Pluto’s imperial mandate, and prepared to execute whatever had been determined upon in council.
And thus Belphagor again made his appearance in the infernal domains, bearing ample testimony to the evils introduced into a household by a wife; while Matteo, on his part, who knew more of the matter than the devil, returned triumphantly home, not a little proud of the victory he had achieved. Courtesy of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Publishers, New York & London.
The devil, as it is said in this story, has a mortal hatred of the sound of bells. The origin of ringing the church bells was, according to Sir James Frazer, to drive away devils and witches. The devil in Poe’s story “The Devil in the Belfry” was, indeed, very courageous in invading the belfry. The concluding part of the story is identical with the Machiavellian tale of Belphagor.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is authority for the statement that Machiavelli’s own married life had nothing to do with the plot of his story. “The notion of this story is ingenious, and might have been made productive of entertaining incident, had Belphagor been led by his connubial connections from one crime to another.
The demon of Machiavelli offers no features of a deep psychology, but he distinguishes himself from the other demons of his period by his elegant manners. Like creator, like creature. Belphagor, the god of the Moabites, like all other pagan gods, joined the infernal forces of Satan when driven off the earth by the Church Triumphant.
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