The Enchantress Of Florence

“‘These things are not mine,” he said to his new Florentine friend, ‘yet they remind me of who I am. I act as their custodian for a time, and when that time is ended, I let them go.’”

The items kept in the captain’s safe act as anchors in a changing and unreliable world. These items are not necessarily valuable beyond whatever sentimental meaning they possess, but they are invaluable in the way in which they can create a foundation of understanding for the man who owns them. In a chaotic world of fiction and magic, possessing and understanding these small, totemic items means that a person need not lose their sense of self, even as the world descends into absurdity.

“There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.”

The term “safely dead” (37) creates a distinction between the dangerous, changing world of the living and the fixed, knowable world of the dead. Death is a finality, a full stop at the end of a life story. In contrast, life is filled with boundless potential and can change at any moment. The finality of death is safe while the chaotic potential of life is dangerous.

“He felt burdened by the names of the marauder past, the names from which his name descended in cascades of human blood.”

Akbar acknowledges that the same ancestors who have created an empire for him to rule have also created a blood-soaked burden which he must endure. The “cascades of human blood” (42) are the price that has been paid for him to be emperor, imbuing him with a sense of responsibility. He must not only measure up to the deeds of his ancestors, but also justify the lives they took in their pursuit of power. Akbar is burdened by the responsibility to his ancestors and their victims alike.

“She was an impossibility, a fantasy of perfection. They feared her, knowing that, being impossible, she was irresistible, and that was why the king loved her best.”

The most loved of all Akbar’s wives is the imaginary woman Jodha. Her existence is a challenge to the idea of love and a reminder to their other wives that their attempts to please Akbar are doomed to fail. Through existence alone, Jodha redefines the parameters of love and how emotional connections can be formed in this world. She is Akbar’s ideal woman, created from his mind, so she exists beyond the flawed boundaries of the human condition and forges an impossible ideal against which all other women—and love itself—are measured.

“Vanity is the enchantment in whose spell you are all held captive, and it is through my knowledge of that vanity that I will achieve my goal.”

Mogor presents himself as a magician, but he is just as much a psychologist as he is a trickster. His understanding of the flaws of his associates allows him to manipulate people as though they were a card trick. He recognizes the inherent vanity of the Mughal Emperor and decides to turn this around, performing a sleight of hand by appealing to the emperor’s ego.

“If man had created god then man could uncreate him too. Or was it possible for a creation to escape the power of the creator? Could a god, once created, become impossible to destroy?”

Akbar reflects on the nature of gods, but his reflections exist in the shadow of his own act of creation. He has dreamed a wife into existence, creating Jodha from nothing more than his thoughts and his desires. If gods are defined by their ability to create and destroy, then his act of creation (and, ultimately, Jodha’s destruction) has the capacity to make him a god. Divinity is not so far from humanity in a world in which magic exists.

“All men needed to hear their stories told.”

In Mogor’s understanding, the power of vanity is such that people are not content to simply live their lives. They must hear their own story being told, as though they are a part of the folklore and legend which exist all around them. By telling these stories, Mogor indulgences his audience and soothes their ego, providing them with the suggestion that their achievements and actions are worthy of fiction.

“Is this what we all do? the emperor asked himself. This habit of the charming lie, this constant embellishment of reality, this pomade applied to the truth.”

Akbar is a reflective, thoughtful man. He seems aware of his own weaknesses and willing to think about them, yet he is drawn into Mogor’s story nonetheless. That Akbar is presented as one of the most intelligent characters in the novel illustrates the seductive quality of Mogor’s storytelling—he is not only able to charm one of the most powerful men in the world, but one of the most intelligent, too.

“The tale of the hidden princess and her Mirror was insisting on being told.”

In the world of The Enchantress of Florence, stories are powerful and alive. The use of the verb “insisting” (139) illustrates this, giving the stories themselves agency as they force people into telling them. The stories cannot be contained as they will always find a way to express themselves through people.

“The Hindustani storyteller always knows when he loses his audience.”

Stories are universal in The Enchantress of Florence but different cultures tell stories and listen to stories in a different manner. As a means of reminding Mogor that he is in a foreign place, Akbar points out the cultural differences which exist among the audience, rather than in the storyteller. The audience is as important as the person telling the story and, Akbar suggests, they must be respected just as much.

“The hero in Dashwanth’s pictures became the emperor’s mirror.”

Painting, like storytelling, is a fiction which an artist can use to explore themselves. Stories and paintings are imitations of the world, mirrors which are held up to existence and which reflect some hidden and unknown part of existence that was not previously seeable. By hearing these stories or looking at these paintings, the audience is changed as much as the storyteller or the painter. The power of art is to reflect the world and to change it at the same time.

“Instead of bringing a fantasy woman to life, Dashwanth had turned himself into an imaginary being, driven (as the emperor had been driven) by the overwhelming force of love.”

When working on his paintings, Dashwanth initially uses his hero as an analogy for the emperor. The hero’s actions are designed to imitate the actions of his patron. As he becomes increasingly obsessed by the subject of his paintings, however, Dashwanth himself becomes an imitation of the emperor. Like Akbar, he demonstrates the power of imagination. While the emperor imagined a woman into existence, Dashwanth is able to imagine himself into his own art. His actions and his fate are an echo and an imitation of the emperor, providing Akbar with a new insight into his own existence.

“I am attracted toward the great polytheist pantheons because the stories are better, more numerous, more dramatic, more humorous, more marvelous; and because the gods do not set us good examples, they are interfering, vain, petulant, and badly behaved, which is, I confess, quite appealing.”

Mogor frames his irreligiosity as a product of his cultural criticism. Religions, in his view, are essentially a collection of stories. He claims to be uninterested in Christianity because the monotheistic religion offers him little in terms of an engaging story. As a born storyteller, he cannot believe in any religion which offends his ideas about fiction.

“It was plain that Mogor dell’Amore was also in the grip of a waking dream, because it was he who had transported these whores across the world to the Arno in his tale.”

The act of storytelling is an act of creation, likened to a divine action in its capacity to transport people—both characters and members of the audience—a huge distance in a single moment. As a storyteller, Mogor is the god. He transports the Skeleton and the Mattress to a new world, giving them new lives. In doing so, he makes his imagined reality seem all the more authentic by populating it with familiar faces.

“The story was completely untrue, but the untruth of untrue stories could sometimes be of service in the real world, and it was tales of this sort —improvised versions of the endless stream of stories he had learned from his friend Ago Vespucci—that saved little Nino Argalia’s own neck.”

The lack of truth in a story becomes a survival tool. Argalia learns from Ago that outlandish stories possess a life of their own, that they cannot be contained. By telling such absurd stories, Argalia is able to navigate dangerous situations. He should be dead, but he is saved by his stories. In this sense, the untruth of his stories shapes the truth of his existence and becomes a form of truth all on its own.

“My name is Angelique and I am. My name is Angelique.”

After revealing all the secrets which were locked away inside her memory palace, Angelique must reconstruct her memory. She clings to the fragments of identity that she has left and repeats her name as a mantra, defiantly asserting her identity against a world which has taken it from her. Despite her best efforts, she dies by suicide from the effort and pain of rebuilding an identity from the scattered fragments of her own story.

“In her absence she was being used as one of those vessels into which human beings pour their own preferences, abhorrences, prejudices, idiosyncrasies, secrets, misgivings, and joys, their unrealized selves, their shadows, their innocence and guilt, their doubts and certainties, their most generous and also most grudging response to their passage through the world.”

The power of stories is revealed in different ways. Qara Koz uses this power differently in comparison to men like Mogor, though she also appeals to the vanity of her audience. While Mogor manipulates his story to tell his audience what they want to hear, Qara Koz becomes a blank page onto which her audience can write their own story. Her power is fluid, reflecting back the neuroses and needs of the people through little effort on her own part.

“That’s much better.”

When Akbar objects to the framing of one of his ancestor’s memories, Mogor immediately shifts his storytelling. He speaks of the dead man in more critical terms, framing him as a villain. Akbar appreciates this change and acknowledges Mogor’s efforts. The change in tone is another form of flattery but also an indication that Mogor is not an unimpeachable storyteller. He nearly falters but is skilled enough to alter his story based on audience reaction.

“You think that home, at the end of a long journey, is a place where a man finds peace.”

Andrea Doria is a man who has understood the cost of war. He tells Argalia that returning home is not possible, as he is not the same person he was when he left. He has been changed by his experiences, so he will never find the peace he craves because neither he nor his home are the same as they once were.

“Why obliterate the exceptional merely in order to make the outstanding look finer than it was?”

Ago perceives the relationship between truth and reality. To his mind, he does not want to deny the truth or to indulge a fiction merely because it is convenient to do so. He allows his infatuation with Angelica to flourish because—as a teller of outlandish stories—he understands the way in which truth and reality can exist alongside his stories. He does not need to deny Angelica’s beauty just because the Mirror is almost as beautiful.

“Florence was everywhere and everywhere was Florence.”

Many of the stories, people, and places are echoed and repeated throughout the novel. Florence is the setting for Mogor’s story, but it contains within it many of the other cities and places that are portrayed throughout the story. People, stories, and events are repeated across the world. Florence, like the stories themselves, contains everything and everything is contained within Florence, echoing across history.

“What a short journey from enchantress to witch.”

Qara Koz has discovered the power of words, acknowledging that “enchantress” and “witch” may seem like synonyms but the subtle differences between their meanings shape her future in the court of public opinion. An enchantress can be tolerated and even adored, but a witch is to be persecuted. She has spent her time as a permissible enchantress but, through no change in herself, she has now become an impermissible witch.

“He would tell himself a better one instead.”

Akbar has tolerated Mogor’s story out of friendship and fascination. At the end of the story, he asserts his authority and dominion over Mogor and over the story. By retelling the story, he reshapes the world. His version is not necessarily more correct that Mogor’s version, as both are flawed, but his version means that Mogor cannot be a welcome presence at court. The demonstration of authority over the story has real-world consequences for both men.