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Updated: May 17, 2025
I love him beyond everything on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul." "Chamberlain," cried the monarch, "bring me a strait waistcoat." Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King's feet, taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched history. The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter.
"O father, do not turn me into a tadpole!" "I will not, but I will turn thee out of doors." And he did. Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a particle of the philosopher's stone a slender outfit for a magician's daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do now?
Her father had watched over her education with care, and had instructed her in all lawful knowledge, save only the knowledge of poisons. As no other human being had entered the house, Mithridata was unaware that her bringing up had differed in so material a respect from that of other young people.
"The symptoms, as I understand, are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly calls upon thee." "This is most incomprehensible," said Mithridata. "There was no drug in my father's laboratory that could have produced such an effect."
"Of that I shall judge," said the King, "when thou hast divested thyself of that veil and mask." Mithridata reluctantly complied. "By Heaven!" exclaimed the King, "such a sight might recall the departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too late." "O King," urged Mithridata, "how could this countenance do thy son any good?
Thou wilt therefore next repair to the city of Constantinople, bearing recommendatory letters from me to the Empress Theophano, now happily reigning." "Father," said Mithridata, "either I shall love this young prince, or I shall not. If I do not love him, I am nowise minded to suffer him to caress me. If I do love him, I am as little minded to be the cause of his death."
To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course.
"The sum of the matter is," continued the King, "that either thou wilt repair forthwith to my son's chamber, and subsequently to church; or else unto the scaffold." "If it must be so, I choose the scaffold," said Mithridata resolutely. "Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son's chamber would but destroy whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain.
Was it from this absence of maternal vigilance that the education of the lovely Mithridata was conducted from her babyhood in such an extraordinary manner? That enormous serpents infested her cradle, licking her face and twining around her limbs? That her tiny fingers patted scorpions? and tied knots in the tails of vipers?
If so, thou wilt pity poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and exclusiveness.
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