Citations:thaumaturge


 * 1977 &mdash; The alchemist is the man who, to achieve transformations of matter, tries to make his soul become as unchangeable and pure as gold; but there is the instance of a Doctor Faust, who inverts the alchemist’s rules, makes the soul an object of exchange, and thus hopes nature will become incorruptible and it will no longer be necessary to seek gold because all elements will be equally precious: the world is gold, and gold is the world. In the same way a knight-errant is one who submits his actions to an absolute and severe moral law, so that natural law can maintain abundance on earth with absolute freedom; but let us try to imagine a Perceval-Parzival-Parsifal who inverts the rule of the Round Table, knightly virtues in him will be involuntary, they will come forth as a gift of nature, like the colors of butterflies’ wings, and while performing his exploits with dazed nonchalance, he will perhaps succeed in subduing nature to his will, in possessing the knowledge of the world like an object, in becoming magician and thaumaturge, in healing the wound of the Fisher King, and in restoring green sap to the wasteland. &mdash; Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Part 2, Chapter 6, 1969. Translated from Italian by William Weaver.