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Then it happened, when Virgil was fourteen years old, that one day in summer he went to an old solitary temple, all ruined and deserted, and therein he laid down to sleep. But ere he had closed his eyes he heard a sound as of a voice lamenting, and it said:

“Alas! I am a prisoner!

Will no one set me free?

If any man can do it,

Full happy shall he be.”

Then Virgil said:

“Tell me who thou art and where thou art.”

And the voice answered:

“I am a spirit,

Imprisoned in a vase

Under the stone

Which is beneath thy head.”

Then Virgil lifted the stone and found a vase, which was closed; and he opened it, and there came forth a beautiful spirit, who told him that there was also in the vase a book of magic and necromancy (magia e gramanzia).

“Therein wilt thou find all secrets

Which thou desirest to obtain,

To make what thou wilt into gold,

To make the dead speak,

To make them come before thee,

To go invisibly where thou wilt,

To become a great poet.

Thou wilt learn the lost secret

How to become great and beautiful;