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It is perhaps the dream of every man as he goes down into the lesser years that he may some day live again his youth, not greedily, and unknowingly, and blunderingly, as in very sooth he lived it once, but deliriously and taking full thought thereof, even as the sybarite lingers over his wine. With the mind of age and the body of youth and the zest that is timeless would he savour the draught once more, and the Gods pleased.
But it is written nowhere in any credible history that the Gods have ever smiled just so. For many a hero of many an ancient tale has won to many a strange guerdon, but to none, save only Jurgen, the disreputable hero of the picaresque legends of Poictesme, was granted this boon. Jurgen, the graceless youth with the graceful gestures, who saw things all too clearly and hence spun about them a net of fine words until they charmed even him, who wooed Astarte and the Devil's wife and many other women irresistibly and insincerely, but who explained quite frankly—albeit with an altogether creditable regret— to Jehovah Himself why he could not quite believe in Him.
For this Jurgen is a high-hearted adventurer adown the paths of phantasy. A poet in his youth, at forty he is a pawnbroker because, as he rationalizes it, in no other calling does one learn so many of the secrets of mankind. His termagant wife is spirited away from him by a well-intentioned Devil who has heard him speak fairly of Evil. Jurgen, although obviously relieved by her removal, feels that he must play the manly part and seek her. So he sets forth.
At the outset he acquires the glittering shirt of Nessus and soon after he cajoles the senile but susceptible Esreda into lending him his youth for a while. True, the suspicious goddess follows him thereafter as his shadow, for to this somewhat acrid Deity amorous adventures are distasteful and her protegee, the rejuvenated Jurgen, is a personable youth; but he has the wit now and then to turn off all the lights so there is no shadow—and no