Melmoth the Wanderer and The Monk: The Lovers' Tale and Ambrosio and Matilda's Affair

Nun and Monk, by Cornelis van Haarlem (1591)

As already addressed in my previous writing on Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, there is a great deal of similarity between what may be called the Lover's Tale in Monçada's story and the affair between Ambrosio and Matilda in Matthew Lewis' The Monk.

Maturin gives a formal nod to Lewis' The Monk fairly early in Melmoth the Wanderer (Vol. I.I) when he references the tale of The Bleeding Nun (The Monk, Vol. II.I), and there are a few other instances in which he is borrowing very lightly from The Monk—such as the ex-Jesuit superior and his entourage of four monks resemble the Saint Clare's Convent's prioress and her entourage of four nuns, and each group abduct one of their votaries for breaking their monastic vows and imprison them in a dungeon under the monastery (Alonzo Monçada in Melmoth, and Anges in The Monk). Another example, though probably inspired by The Monk more than referencing or borrowing is how Melmoth the Traveler may be seen as something like the Wandering Jew, and the Wandering Jew makes a prominent appearance in The Monk (Vol. II.I) But the most notable "borrowing" from The Monk Maturin does could practically be regarded as plagiarism—but, of course, with his own spin.

Let us begin with Lewis' The Monk. In the city of Madrid, at the Monastery of Saint Francis is a very pious and virtuous abbot named Ambrosio (Lewis calls him an abbot, though he is actually, based on the description of him, a friar, even though the book is called The Monk—this complete disregard of accuracy in Catholicism is typical of Lewis), who is regarded as a saint by the citizens of Madrid: he captivates audiences when he gives sermons to the people, and has been chosen to be the confessor who all the nuns of Saint Clare's Convent confess to. While Ambrosio is certainly very pious, he is also a very vain and prideful man, and the monastery has safely guarded him from temptation until now. His origins are mysterious, as he was left abandoned on the steps of the abbey, and so the monks took him in and raised him as one of their own. He becomes very close to a novice, Rosario, who's origins and admittance into the monastery are a mystery. He has a soft voice, a fine and fair face, and never takes off his hood. Rosario eventually confesses to Ambrosio that he is actually a woman, and her real name is Matilda.

Matilda loves Ambrosio, but she loves him for his virtuosity, and tells him that she would no longer love him if she made him a sinner:

"Think not, Ambrosio, that I come to rob your Bride of your affections. No, believe me: Religion alone deserves you; and far is it from Matilda's wish to draw you from the paths of virtue. What I feel for you is love, not licentiousness; I sigh to be possessor of your heart, not lust for the enjoyment of your person."

"No, Father, No! I expect not to inspire you with a love like mine. I only wish for the liberty to be near you, to pass some hours of the day in you society; to obtain your compassion, your friendship and esteem."

"I love you for your virtues: Lose them, and with them you lose my affections. I look upon you as a Saint; Prove to me that you are no more than Man, and I quit you with disgust."
—The Monk, Volume I, Chapter II

Not only is Ambrosio vain, but the temptation of a woman has now shown him that he is lustful, and the temptation displeases him. When he curses her and tries to cast her out, she tears open her habit and places a dagger on her heart, her "beauteous Orb", which sexually excites Ambrosio. He remains strong and permits her to stay and to keep her secret, but desires to remain separate from her. While Ambrosio is picking a flower (as a parting gift) for Matilda a serpent bites him, and his recovery is regarded as a miracle, and Matilda never leaves his side.

Ambrosio has on the wall of his cell a painting of the Virgin Mary, which he holds a near-lustful admiration for. Matilda confesses to him that she herself was the model for this painting, and that she saw to it that he receive it—she clearly desired him long before she entered the monastery. Ambrosio's lust finally gets the best of him:

"No prying eye, or curious ear was near the Lovers: Nothing was heard but Matilda's melodious accents. Ambrosio was in the full vigour of Manhood. ...He forgot his vows, his sanctity, and his fame: He remebered nothing but the pleasure and opportunity.
"'Ambrosio! Oh! my Ambrosio!' sighed Matilda."
—The Monk, Volume I, Chapter II

Of course, he soon regrets his actions, and curses her, but being a lustful man he soon returns to her for many nights of carnal pleasure. He soon grows tired of her, and desires someone new. This someone new turns out to be a young girl, Antonia. He soon is asked to come to her home to give last rites to her mother; he having already broken his vow of chastity, he now decides to break his vow of never leaving the monastery. He visits Antonia's house a second time, and when he gets the chance to be alone in a room with Antonia, he tries to rape her, but Antonia's mother, having regained some strength catches him. Antonia is much too innocent to understand what the abbot was trying to do to her, and she still remains fond of him, while her mother forbids Ambrosio to ever come near her home or daughter again.

Matilda eventual resigns from Ambrosio: though she still dedicates herself to him, she will no longer have sex with him, as he does not love her, but is only trying to satisfy his appetite. Matilda helps design a scheme for Ambrosio to have Antonia, which she designs with some demonic assistance: she summons the Devil through black arts, sells her soul to the Enemy of Mankind, and he now serves her every command. While Ambrosio refuses to consort with Satan, he does accept Matilda's help via the Devil: "...as He employed her assistance, not that of Dæmons, the crime of Sorcery could not be laid to his charge. He had read much respecting witchcraft: He understood that unless a formal Act was signed renouncing his claim to salvation, Satan would have no power over him" (The Monk, Vol. II.IV). The plan they devise is for Ambrosio to sneak out of the monastery, touch the door of the house with a silver myrtle to unlock the door, and all in the house would be under a spell of deep sleep, and he may be permitted to have his way with his victim. All goes according to plan, but some how Elvira, Antonia's mother awakens and catches Ambrosio trying once again to rape her daughter. She tries to hold him and scream for help, but Ambrosio silences her by choking her to death (Vol. III.I).

Still determined to have his victim, he again gains the help of Matilda, who gathers a liquor from the laboratory in Saint Clare's Convent which causes a state of such deep sleep that the person is perceived to be dead (possibly digitalis); Ambrosio will poison her with it, and Antonia, now an orphan, will be buried in the catacombs under Saint Clare's Convent (which is connected to Saint Francis Monastery; Ambrosio's monastery), and once her body is there Ambrosio may have his way with her forever. The plan is executed and goes through like clockwork. Antonia is laid in a chamber deep in Saint Clare's catacombs, and when she awakens Ambrosio is there to comfort her, and then he overtakes and rapes her. Afterwards he immediately hates her and himself, curses her, and then refuses to ever let her go; though he would never desire her again, he must let her die in this tomb. Antonia tries to escape, but Ambrosio stabs her; the wound is fatal and she, like her mother, perishes (Vol. III.IV).

Ambrosio is caught after this murder and held prisoner by the Inquisition, as is Matilda. He is tortured and questioned. Eventually Matilda comes to his cell unaccompanied and with ease (some Melmoth the Traveler is capable of doing and does so for Monçada when he is held by the inquisition after escaping the convent): she has made a deal with the Devil (something she apparently had already done) and he is taking her away to a paradise until the end of her days, and that he, Ambrosio, too, can come, if only he denounce God and sell his soul to Satan. He eventually does this, but never makes any other terms with the deal other than to escape, so Satan takes him to a dark, mountainous region to torture and kill Ambrosio. The Devil reveals that Matilda is his minion that he sent her to tempt Ambrosio, and that Elvira was Ambrosio's mother, and that Antonia was his sister—he murdered his mother, and then raped and murdered his own sister (Vol. III.V).

"...a moment suffices to make him to-day the detestation of the world, who yesterday was its Idol."
—The Monk, Volume III, Chapter I

The Lovers' Tale—a story embedded in Monçada's Tale in Melmoth the Wanderer—shares a number of similarities with Ambrosio's downfall; and though many things are changed—e.g. who does what to whom has been changed—most of the elements are still there.

While Monçada is waiting in the catacombs with his guide—a man who murdered his own father—for the sun to set so they can escape the monastery through the garden, his guide tells him a tragic story of two lovers whose fate led them to their deaths in a chamber Monçada and his parricidal accomplice (who is never named) are sitting adjacent to.

In their ex-Jesuit monastery was a young monk—a pious and good monk—who was of a distinguished family of Spain, and, like Monçada, had taken up the monastic life because of his parents' marriage (the father had married below his rank). One day a young novice enters the monastery and becomes close friends with this young monk. This novice had peculiar mannerisms, and came under suspicion.

"The friendship of convents is always a treacherous league—we watch, suspect, and torment each other for the love of God."

"One evening as the young monk and his darling novice were in the garden, the former plucked a peach, which he immediately offered to his favourite; the latter accepted it with a movement I thought rather awkward—it seemed like what I imagined would be the reverence of a female. The young monk divided the peach with a knife; in doing so, the knife grazed the finger of the novice, and the monk, in agitation inexpressible, tore his habit to bind up the wound."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter IX

The parricidal monk reports their behavior to the superior of the convent, who gives him permission to spy and report their actions and behavior back to him. One night, while waiting in the dark hallway the parricidal monk heard someone enter the young monk's cell, so he reported this to the superior and his four attendants. They entered the cell and found the novice to be a woman, and the two of them having sex: "The wretched husband and wife were locked in each others arms... to see two human beings of different sexes, who dared to love each other in spite of monastic ties..."

"Angels, as I had thought them, they had all proved themselves mortal..." The superior, wishing to give the lovers the strictest punishment, directed the parricidal monk to help them "escape" the convent through the catacombs under the monastery and out through the garden (the exact same route he was taking Monçada as he told the story). He leads the lovers into a chamber so they may rest, and then closes the door behind them—they figured he was being cautious and protecting them. The superior soon arrived and nailed the door shut, and the lovers cried out in terror: "...they knew their doom."

At first the lovers comforted each other, but after about twelve hours—as hunger sets in and the hard, cold floor begins to discomfort—the man blames and curses the woman. They soon grow to hate each other. On the fourth day: "I heard the shriek of the wretched female,—her lover, in the agony of hunger, had fastened his teeth in her shoulder;—that bosom on which he had so often luxuriated, became a meal to him now." The two lovers perished on the sixth day. All this time the parricidal monk had remained outside the door of the chamber to spy on them as "penance". After the lovers had died of starvation the door was ripped off and they were found on opposite ends of the chamber. When their bodies were removed from the chamber, our monk gets a good look at the woman's face and recognizes her as his own sister (Vol. II.IX).

Some similarities jump out immediate: both lovers (i.e. Ambrosio and Matilda, and the nameless lovers) are initially in state of bliss despite their knowledge of each others' sex, symbolized by their moment in the garden; this bliss is ended with the plucking of a fruit (a flower by Ambrosio and a peach by the young monk) and quickly followed by a bite (by a snake in The Monk and a knife in Melmoth the Wanderer). Both pairs of lovers soon engage in a sexual affair, which opens up the way to their doom.

Character roles are mixed up in Melmoth the Wanderer: for instance, the snake bites Ambrosio, while the knife bites the female novice (Matilda's equivalent).

Ambrosio is presented as a devilish figure—throughout The Monk he is described in a manner that is remarkably similar to Milton's descriptions of Satan in Paradise Lost, and when he was found on the doorstep of the monastery "The common People say, that He fell from heaven" (Vol. II.III; while this could easily be regarded as an endearing statement about his divinity and angelic nature, Lucifer, too, fell from Heaven); additionally, in Volume I.I of The Monk Lorenzo has a dream where he sees Ambrosio as a demon that rapes Antonia and pulls her down to Hell—while the nameless parricidal monk is more of the devilish figure—he is repeatedly called "demonic" by Monçada and generally regarded as evil. With this in mind, Ambrosio as a devil kills his own sister, and the parricidal monk as a devil also kills his sister; though neither knew their victims were their own sisters when they executed them. Thus Ambrosio and the parricidal monk are akin to one another.

The female novice in the Lovers' Tale is akin to Matilda in The Monk, because she had disguised herself and had sex with a monk; but Matilda is a servant of Satan, and was sent to tempt Ambrosio into perdition; and since the female novice was the murder victim of her own brother, she is also comparable to Antonia in The Monk. Thus, the female novice is both Matilda and Antonia. Likewise, since the parricidal monk also kills the young monk, he is also like Satan, because Satan killed Ambrosio. Thus our kinslaying monk is both Satan and Ambrosio.

While Maturin appears to be stealing almost completely from Lewis, Maturin does do something with Lewis' characters in his Lovers' Tale that makes it exceptional: he combines and mixes actions and personalities to create dualistic, if not contradictory characters. Matilda and Antonia are practically opposites of each other, and Maturin wraps them up in the same body. He reinforces the Satanic character of the Ambrosio character, while simultaneously he divides Ambrosio into two individuals: (i.e. the young monk and the parricidal monk). This dualistic and or contradictory nature of Maturin's characters further adds to his continuous theme of contradiction and dualism throughout Melmoth the Wanderer.

Further reading:
Lewis, Matthew. The Monk.
Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer.

Melmoth the Wanderer: Jesuit Rites of Passage and Alonzo Monçada's Tale

The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, by Charles Maucourt

Most of us have met someone who, when they tell you a story, they go on many tangents; they tell you one story and then say, "I told you that story to tell you this story...", or while telling one story they break from it and tell a tangential story, then later come back and finish the initial story; some of us have met someone who will tell one story, break into a tangent, and while on that tangent they break it and go deeper into another tangent—somewhat like the film Inception. Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Maturin, is quite similar; it is composed primarily of embedded stories, all of which in some manner feature a strange man named John Melmoth "The Traveler", who is over a 150 years old and sold his soul to the Devil for longevity and variety of powers; but he wants out of his Faustian pact, and travels the world looking for sinners or easily corruptible individuals who are in a deplorable and hopeless situation (i.e. prison, mental asylum, near death) to take his place. Each story has its own theme, most of which are critiques and criticisms on religion, in particular Christianity, and specifically Catholicism (Maturin was an Irish Protestant clergyman); the criticisms generally center around human suffering to monasticism.

The story that is of particular interest here is the tale of Alonzo Monçada, who is forced from a young age to enter into a monastic life, which is greatly protests. The monastery he enters is that of ex-Jesuits (as Monçada's story takes place in Spain in the late 18th Century, presumably after the Spanish Jesuits were suppressed in 1767). While they are ex-Jesuits they still retain a lot of aspects of the Society of Jesus (i.e. Jesuits), such as their various titles, their strict religious observances, et cetera. Unlike Jesuits, these ex-Jesuits do not act like their former counterparts as a secret society with symbolic rites of passage and trails of trust of fraternal bondage. However, in Monçada's tale he does undergo trails that resemble rites of passage in the Society of Jesus.

To briefly summarize the beginning of Monçada's tale: he was the first son of one of Spain's first families, but he was born out of wedlock, and thus he is a child born of sin, which he must be punished for (this is Maturin's critical condemnation of Original Sin), and is forced to enter into monastic life, which he repeatedly detested. He opted to appeal to a council to have his vows nullified and to be freed—against the admonishment of his superiors and family—but this appeal is eventually denied. Reminiscent of Anges' story in Matthew Lewis' The Monk, Monçada is brought before the superior and his four closest monks, who take him into the bowels of the monastery and locked in a damp, dark dungeon as punishment, left with only a rosary, stale bread to "moisten with his tears", a mat to sleep on, and the reptiles the crawl on him. He is eventually freed from the dungeon, but everything has rendered Monçada an outcast in the monastery, and he is shunned amongst the other monks, who call him the Devil. Since he was of a prominent Spanish family, his room was originally well furnished, filled with books and beautiful prints and paintings, and everyday adorn with fresh flowers—none of which brought him any pleasure. The monks beginning to take away the flowers, the books, prints, furniture, et cetera, until he is left with only a bed and a mattress. He has also been denied entry into the church for mass and prayer, as well as denied food and water, save for the scraps that are  mixed with ash and hair that the cook throws at him.

After everything is taken from him, save for a bed to sleep on, Monçada awakes in the middle of the night in his cell to be greeted by demonic images:

"I awoke one night, and saw my cell in flames; I started up in horror, but shrunk back on perceiving myself surrounded by demons, who, clothed in fire, were breathing forth clouds of it around me. Desperate with horror, I rushed against the wall, and found what I touched was cold. My recollection returned, and I comprehended, that these were hideous figures scrawled in phosphorus, to terrify me. I then returned to my bed, and as the day-light approached, observed these figures gradually decline."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter VI

He protests this prank by the monks to superior, who ignores him. The next night he is then greeted by an infernal voice in his cell that speaks blasphemes to him, and tells him to trample upon the crucifix and spit upon the image of the Virgin. (While the origin of the tempting voice is never addressed, it can be concluded to be either Melmoth the Traveler or the monks further torturing him). The voice never lets him sleeps, so he is perpetually tired, hungry, scared, and overall in poor health. At one point the demonic entity comes to Monçada as the blessed Virgin Mary, to which he feels relief until the voice returns and tells him to curse the Virgin, and she disappears.

All of this—the starvation, dehydration, solitary confinement, trails and pranks featuring demonic images and infernal voices—resemble the initiation of a novice into the Society of Jesus. Jesuits have four degrees (i.e. ranks): Coadjutores Temporaries, Scholastici, Coadjutores Spirituales, and Professi.

Initiations into the first degree, Coadjurotes Temporaries, begin with the candidate fasting for a prolonged period of time. Before the trail the candidate is given an intoxicating drink, and then he undergoes a twenty-four hour long trail of infernal scenes of "diabolical apparitions, evocations of the dead, representations of the flames of hell, skeletons, moving skulls, artificial thunder and lightning" (Heckethorn, Secret Societies, Book IX.VIII.335) and other images and dramatizations.

Monçada, after being denied his appeal to be released from his monastic vows, conspires with his brother, Juan Monçada, (who receives all the rites and benefits of a first born son, because he was the first born in wedlock—which is reminiscent of Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Ruben and Joseph) to escape the monastery. Juan finds a man within the monastery who could be bought and help Alonzo Monçada escape; problem is that this man murdered his own father for a small amount of money, and is now under the protection of the ex-Jesuits. This murderer leads Monçada through the catacombs under the monastery, and at one point tells Monçada to go down a narrow passage, which he nearly gets stuck in. Monçada is able to escape the snare and finds himself with his guide waiting for the sun to set again (as they were delayed a whole day by getting lost) and escape through the garden (Melmoth, Vol. II.VIII). While waiting by the exit, the murderer tells Monçada about the chamber they are sitting just outside of: it is a story that is practically stolen from Lewis' The Monk concerning the affair of Ambrosio and Matilda; according to the murderer: a very noble and pious monk becomes close friends with a younger monk, who turns out to be a woman in disguise; they have a love affair for some time until they are caught; their punishment, per the strict religious observances of Jesuits, is death, so our murderer gains their trust and makes them believe he is helping them escape, but instead leads them to this chamber in the catacombs to starve to death; our murderer locks them in the chamber and listens for days as they console each other, then turn on each other, then attacking each other, and finally die (Melmoth, Vol. II.IX).

(The similarities of this story of the monastic lovers is so strikingly similar to Ambrosio and Matilda in The Monk that I plan on discussing it in another post).

This passage through the monastery catacombs is similar to the rites of the second degree, Scholastici, of the Jesuits: the candidate undergoes a prolong session of fasting, is hoodwinked, and then led into a cave or catacomb where howling and roaring sounds are produced (presumably by other Jesuit monks), and finally enter a special chamber, called the Cave of Evocation or the Black Chamber. The candidate would pass the time praying, and all the while be watched by priests. If the priests found the candidate's behavior and demeanor acceptable, then two brethren would enter the chamber as angels, strip the neophyte naked and perform various rites (such as drawing crosses on his body in blood), and there will be a procession of "spectres, phantoms, angels and demons" (no, I am not exaggerating any of this), and have the candidate make an oath to his brethren (Heckethorn, Secret Societies, Book IX.VIII.335).

Monçada's tale goes on (and on and on and on... it is a long story), but what happens is irrelevant to this writing.

Now, clearly Maturin does not follow the Jesuit rites of passage point by point—if for no other reason than the fact that at the time the Jesuits were dissolved and could no longer perform their rites, but also because Monçada is the last person they would confer their rites upon—but it is easily recognizable that motifs and elements of Jesuit initiation rituals are present in Monçada's tale. Exactly why they are included in the tale is a bit of mystery to me. If anything, it seems Maturin placed them in his story for the purpose of demonstrating that he knew the rites of the Jesuits (something that became public knowledge after their dissolution). In his defense, Monçada's tale is both dark and condemning of Catholic Church's practices and the various practices they condoned, and these Jesuit rites add to his story and criticisms.

In a way, the ex-Jesuits only wanted Monçada to be a part of their monastery; they contrived "miracles" to make him believe it was God's will that he be a monk; they lie and manipulate his family to make him enter the monastery and remain there. The irony of this portion of Monçada's tale is that in order to escape his monastic life with the ex-Jesuits he had to undergo the rites of two Jesuit degrees. But this sort irony and contradiction is somewhat of a recurring theme in Melmoth the Wanderer: for instance, Melmoth the Traveler is a Faustian character, as he sold his soul to the Devil, but in order to get out of the pact he has to play the part of Mephistopheles and tempt others to take his place in the pact. A much simpler example: the Jesuit brethren curse and spit on and avoid Monçada, and he remarks how unchristian this is: "...how little of the spirit of Jesus was to be found in the house of his nominal brethren." Thus it is not capricious or whimsical for Maturin to have Monçada undergo Jesuit initiation rites, as it carries with his themes of dualism, contradiction, paradox, and irony that pervades every character, place, situation, object, and story.

"In some circumstances, where the whole world is against us, we begin to take its part against ourselves, to avoid the withering sensation of being alone on our own side."
—Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume II, Chapter VI

Further readings:
Maturin, Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer.
Heckethorn, Charles. The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries.