Return to Table of ContentsSoon an inky black cloud appeared on the eastern horizon and came blowing quickly toward them. The earth darkened around them, and amid crashes of thunder and blasts of lightning the cloud disgorged a giant Black Bull that charged them. In a flash Vergilius changed into a White Bull, which rushed the black. The two collided and engaged their horns while, true to his promise, Vergilius' uncle scourged the Black Bull. The storm continued while they fought and tore up the earth with their hooves. Suddenly the cloud descended around them, and the bulls, sprouting wings, ascended into the cloud, where their battle continued amid deafening thunder and blinding lightning. The cloud closed around them and blew quickly away to the west. Vergilius' uncle was alone; there was no sign of the boy. Indeed, he was not seen again for seven years - some say he had been studying with the wise man Lucretius - but nobody could find him until he returned on his fourteenth birthday.
And when Vergilius initiation was completed, in his fourteenth year,
he was sent to an ancient ruined temple on
a quest for visions. After much fasting and prayer, he fell asleep, and
a voice came to him, which claimed to be that of a Daemon imprisoned in
an urn hidden under the stone on which Vergilius had placed his head.
He awoke immediately and indeed found an urn under the stone. When it
was opened, a beautiful Daemon, female in form, appeared and told
Vergilius that there was also a Black Book of Spells (Volumen Nigrum
Incantatorum) and a magic wand in the
urn, which were Vergilius' reward. So he took them, and thus came into
his maturity as a Magus. It was not long after, on the very day of his
fifteenth birthday, when Vergilius assumed the toga virilis and
entered into his manhood, that the great philosopher Lucretius died by
his own hand [15 Oct. 55 BCE].
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