Does the fate of the armil, sold in an Alexandrian shop, reveal tragic events in the Region of Huldah? Has Huldah been overrun by the North African hordes of Carthage, as Henry Wessells suggests? It is certainly plausible, else why would Huldah’s armil be for sale in a shop? Yet if Avram Davidson had lived long enough to complete his nine-volume “trinity of Vergil Magus trilogies,” would the holy grail quest for Huldah’s armil eventually lead Vergil back to Huldah herself?
As the journey transformed Vergil from Mage to man, so did Avram Davidson’s journey into the world of Vergil alchemically transform the author from man to Mage. For a long while, during the later part of his life, Avram Davidson became so engrossed in his research into the Vergil Magus mythos that he almost left off writing the novels themselves. Among his papers we found boxes and boxes of notes. Files of notecards were carefully hand-annotated and cross-referenced into a sort of Vergil Magus Encyclopaedia, with every bit of arcane knowledge that could be used in the project, until the quest for knowledge became more important to Avram than the project itself.
How did Avram Davidson become so engrossed in the Roman poet, Vergil, who evolved into the mediaeval sorcerer, Vergil Magus? In the dedication to this book, Avram credits Sam Moskowitz for encouraging him to speak on any topic. But why did he choose the topic of Vergil, Roman poet/ Vergil, mediaeval Magus?
Let’s time-travel back to the winter of 1961-2. Avram Davidson and I were married and living in New York. As a Californian, I was used to getting out a lot, and I soon discovered that in wintry New York, out meant indoors. And where better to spend the snowy winter days than the magnificent Metropolitan Museum of Art? Avram and I lingered in the galleries and exhibits. Then we discovered the basement, which was a treasure trove filled with a wonderful assortment of small objects, including a splendid collection of antique Italian ceramics.
There we noticed a Venetian glass vessel with the image of a finely robed mediaeval man suspended from a basket beneath an Italian stone tower. The placard told us that the man was Vergil the magician. A princess of the realm, who offered to lift him into her bower in the basket, had lured him into this predicament. She was an enchantress who tricked him, and left him suspended halfway up the tower overnight, so that come morning, the townspeople could see and jeer the mighty Magus in the basket. Ah Vergil, ah Avram, ever the romantics.
Was this amusing Venetian vessel, spotted on a wintry New York afternoon, one of the sparks that kindled Avram Davidson’s lifelong journey into the world of Vergil Magus? I cannot say for sure, but shortly afterward he began work on The Phoenix and the Mirror, the first novel in the Vergil Magus trilogy, and the proposed trinity of trilogies. In The Phoenix and the Mirror, and the later Vergil in Averno, we see ancient Rome, not from a contemporary viewpoint, but from a mediaeval vantage. It is a time-shift that is unique in the literature of shifting time.
How did Vergil, the Roman poet, evolve into Vergil, the mediaeval magus? The Phoenix and the Mirror was published in 1969, when Avram was far from frosty New York, sojourning in tropical British Honduras (now Belize). In his “Author’s Note,” Avram writes: During the Middle Ages a copious and curious group of legends became associated with the name of Vergil, attributing to the author of The Aeneid and The Georgics all manner of heroic, scientific, and magical powers — to such an extent, indeed, that most of the world forgot that Vergil had been a poet, and looked upon him as a nigromancer, or sorcerer. From the Dark Ages to the Renascence the popular view of the ancient world as reflected in the Vergilean Legends was far from the historical and actual one in more than the acceptance of legend and magic and myth. It is a world of never-never, and yet it is a world true to its own curious lights — a backward projection of medievalism, an awed and confused transmogrification of quasi-forgotten ancient science, a world which slumbered much — but whose dreams were far from dull.
It is this Vergil who guided Dante through the afterlife, and this world and its dreams that captured Avram’s imagination for the remainder of his life. Two decades of extensive research elapsed between the publication of The Phoenix and the Mirror in the sixties, and the dark and deep Vergil in Averno in 1987. Drafts of The Scarlet Fig date from 1989, and the work continued until Avram’s passing in 1993. More than a decade passed before the novel was at last edited for publication in this volume.
I had studied Latin in school, and was very excited to see this project evolve, as a genre unto itself. Later I had the good fortune to visit some of the sites of ancient Rome (British readers are fortunate to have easy access to the splendid sites at Hadrian’s Wall, Londinium, Bath, etc.). I journeyed to Volubilis in modern Morocco, beautifully preserved and famed for its toxic lead water pipes. Encountering Vergil in faraway far Volubilis, in this third novel, set the geographical stage and renewed the excitement for me.
Vergil’s journey can almost be traced on a modern map: from Yellow Rome to Naples; then by sea to Corsica of the bittersweet honey, thence to the misty and magical Region of Huldah, and the mysterious Isle of the Lotophages. Again by sea to Tingitayne in Mauritania, on the West African coast; then across the land of stone in the deserts of North Africa through Volubilis in Morocco, and finally to Alexandria in Egypt.
Seeing this book published at long last, after its long and difficult journey, is like observing a mediaeval miracle. Avram wrote many drafts of this novel. Chapters and portions were scattered among his papers, and were often too faded to read. He had sent a mostly complete draft to critic and author Gregory Feeley for comment. That was the draft we decided to use. If Avram had sent it out, it must have been worth sending.
But there were many gaps, and missing material that had to be painstakingly reconstructed from earlier and partial drafts. I had to dumpster-dive deep into the musty and dusty boxes of The Avram Davidson Archive to locate fragments and earlier drafts that contained the missing bits. Editing The Scarlet Fig was a true work of literary archaeology.
Handwritten Afterscripts completed the text. At the end of one draft we found the following note: Avram Davidson finished this 3rd vol of the once-proped 9 volume work VERGIL MAGUS approximately a quarter-century after having finished the first: entirely without the same joy and exultation.
Another draft, with the same 1989 date, ends with this entirely different handwritten note: Historical note: This finishes the first draft of the 3rd volume of VERGIL MAGUS, just about one quarter-century after I finished the ist volume. In celebration whereof, the Authorities have declared an Eclipse of the Moon. Author’s summation: “It beats working.”
Two Afterscripts, one bitter, another sweet. Two moods, one discouraged, another elated. Which best fits Avram’s final summation of his final novel? Both.
The steadfast editorial work of esteemed co-editor Henry Wessells, and the ongoing encouragement, efforts and patience of more-than-esteemed British publisher Phillip Rose, finally enabled this book to be published. I want to thank Eileen Gunn, Ser Reno Odlin, and Gregory Feeley for preserving and sharing Vergil Magus materials. I also wish to thank Melisa and Richard Michaels of Embiid Publications, for help when I needed it.