The Castle of Otranto
Of fell ambition scourg’d by fate,
From reason’s peevish blame.
Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail
I dare expand to Fancy’s gale,
For sure thy smiles are Fame.
H. W.
CHAPTER I.
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a
most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the
son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising
disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any
symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for
his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had
already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that
he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health
would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and
neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their
Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this
precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes
venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early,
considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never
received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had
given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in
their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s
dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have
pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the
present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to
inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and
still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in
question. Yet these mysteries, or contradictions, did not make the
populace adhere the less to their opinion.
Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company was
assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for beginning
the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing. Manfred, impatient
of the least delay, and who had not observed his son retire, despatched
one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant, who had
not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment,
came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and
foaming at the mouth. He said nothing, but pointed to the court.
The company were struck with terror and amazement. The Princess
Hippolita, without knowing what was the matter, but anxious for her son,
swooned away. Manfred, less apprehensive than enraged at the
procrastination of the nuptials, and at the folly of his domestic, asked
imperiously what was the matter? The fellow made no answer, but
continued pointing towards the courtyard; and at last, after repeated
questions put to him, cried out, “Oh! the helmet! the helmet!”
In the meantime, some of the company had run into the court, from whence
was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise. Manfred,
who began to be alarmed at not seeing his son, went himself to get
information of what occasioned this strange confusion. Matilda remained
endeavouring to assist her mother, and Isabella stayed for the same
purpose, and to avoid showing any impatience for the bridegroom, for
whom, in truth, she had conceived little affection.
The first thing that struck Manfred’s eyes was a group of his servants
endeavouring to raise something that appeared to him a mountain of sable
plumes. He gazed without believing his sight.
“What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully; “where is my son?”
A volley of voices replied, “Oh! my Lord! the Prince! the Prince! the
helmet! the helmet!”
Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he
advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father’s eyes!—he beheld his
child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an
hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and
shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.
The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this
misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous phenomenon before
him, took away the Prince’s speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than
even grief could occasion. He fixed his eyes on what he wished in vain
to believe a vision; and seemed less attentive to his loss, than buried
in meditation on the stupendous object that had occasioned it. He
touched, he examined the fatal casque; nor could even the bleeding
mangled remains of the young Prince divert the eyes of Manfred from the
portent before him.
All who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as much
surprised at their Prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck themselves at
the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the disfigured corpse into the
hall, without receiving the least direction from Manfred. As little was
he attentive to the ladies who remained in the chapel. On the contrary,
without mentioning the unhappy princesses, his wife and daughter, the
first sounds that dropped from Manfred’s lips were, “Take care of the
Lady Isabella.”
The domestics, without observing the singularity of this direction, were
guided by their affection to their mistress, to consider it as peculiarly
addressed to her situation, and flew to her assistance. They conveyed
her to her chamber more dead than alive, and indifferent to all the
strange circumstances she heard, except the death of her son.
Matilda, who doted on her mother, smothered her own grief and amazement,
and thought of nothing but assisting and comforting her afflicted parent.
Isabella, who had been treated by Hippolita like a daughter, and who
returned that tenderness with equal duty and affection, was scarce less
assiduous about the Princess; at the same time endeavouring to partake
and lessen the weight of sorrow which she saw Matilda strove to suppress,
for whom she had conceived the warmest sympathy of friendship. Yet her
own situation could not help finding its place in her thoughts. She felt
no concern for the death of young Conrad, except commiseration; and she
was not sorry to be delivered from a marriage which had promised her
little felicity, either from her destined bridegroom, or from the severe
temper of Manfred, who, though he had distinguished her by great
indulgence, had imprinted her mind with terror, from his causeless rigour
to such amiable princesses as Hippolita and Matilda.
While the ladies were conveying the wretched mother to her bed, Manfred
remained in the court, gazing on the ominous casque, and regardless of
the crowd which the strangeness of the event had now assembled around
him. The few words he articulated, tended solely to inquiries, whether
any man knew from whence it could have come? Nobody could give him the
least information. However, as it seemed to be the sole object of his
curiosity, it soon became so to the rest of the spectators, whose
conjectures were as absurd and improbable, as the catastrophe itself was
unprecedented. In the midst of their senseless guesses, a young peasant,
whom rumour had drawn thither from a neighbouring village, observed that
the miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble
of Alfonso the Good, one of their former princes, in the church of St.
Nicholas.
“Villain! What sayest thou?” cried Manfred, starting from his trance in
a tempest of rage, and seizing the young man by the collar; “how darest
thou utter such treason? Thy life shall pay for it.”
The spectators, who as little comprehended the cause of the Prince’s fury
as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel this new
circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more astonished, not
conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet recollecting himself,
with a mixture of grace and humility, he disengaged himself from
Manfred’s grip, and then with an obeisance, which discovered more
jealousy of innocence than dismay, he asked, with respect, of what he was
guilty? Manfred, more enraged at the vigour, however decently exerted,
with which the young man had shaken off his hold, than appeased by his
submission, ordered his attendants to seize him, and, if he had not been
withheld by his friends whom he had invited to the nuptials, would have
poignarded the peasant in their arms.
During this altercation, some of the vulgar spectators had run to the
great church, which stood near the castle, and came back open-mouthed,
declaring that the helmet was missing from Alfonso’s statue. Manfred, at
this news, grew perfectly frantic; and, as if he sought a subject on
which to vent the tempest within him, he rushed again on the young
peasant, crying—
“Villain! Monster! Sorcerer! ’tis thou hast done this! ’tis thou hast
slain my son!”
The mob, who wanted some object within the scope of their capacities, on
whom they might discharge their bewildered reasoning, caught the words
from the mouth of their lord, and re-echoed—
“Ay, ay; ’tis he, ’tis he: he has stolen the helmet from good Alfonso’s
tomb, and dashed out the brains of our young Prince with it,” never
reflecting how enormous the disproportion was between the marble helmet
that had been in the church, and that of steel before their eyes; nor how
impossible it was for a youth seemingly not twenty, to wield a piece of
armour of so prodigious a weight.
The folly of these ejaculations brought Manfred to himself: yet whether
provoked at the peasant having observed the resemblance between the two
helmets, and thereby led to the farther discovery of the absence of that
in the church, or wishing to bury any such rumour under so impertinent a
supposition, he gravely pronounced that the young man was certainly a
necromancer, and that till the Church could take cognisance of the
affair, he would have the Magician, whom they had thus detected, kept
prisoner under the helmet itself, which he ordered his attendants to
raise, and place the young man under it; declaring he should be kept
there without food, with which his own infernal art might furnish him.
It was in vain for the youth to represent against this preposterous
sentence: in vain did Manfred’s friends endeavour to divert him from this
savage and ill-grounded resolution. The generality were charmed with
their lord’s decision, which, to their apprehensions, carried great
appearance of justice, as the Magician was to be punished by the very
instrument with which he had offended: nor were they struck with the
least compunction at the probability of the youth being starved, for they
firmly believed that, by his diabolic skill, he could easily supply
himself with nutriment.
Manfred thus saw his commands even cheerfully obeyed; and appointing a
guard with strict orders to prevent any food being conveyed to the
prisoner, he dismissed his friends and attendants, and retired to his own
chamber, after locking the gates of the castle, in which he suffered none
but his domestics to remain.
In the meantime, the care and zeal of the young Ladies had brought the
Princess Hippolita to herself, who amidst the transports of her own
sorrow frequently demanded news of her lord, would have dismissed her
attendants to watch over him, and at last enjoined Matilda to leave her,
and visit and comfort her father. Matilda, who wanted no affectionate
duty to Manfred, though she trembled at his austerity, obeyed the orders
of Hippolita, whom she tenderly recommended to Isabella; and inquiring of
the domestics for her father, was informed that he was retired to his
chamber, and had commanded that nobody should have admittance to him.
Concluding that he was immersed in sorrow for the death of her brother,