In this story by Arthur Quiller-Couch who wrote under the pen-name “Q” (No relation to the James Bond Q!), a very old man almost freezes to death outside a rich man’s house. The rich man takes the old man in and has him cared for. Nobody knows who the old man is or where he came from, and no one can understand his strange language. However, the old man has a mysterious power. He begins to suck the life out of the rich man, slowly turning him into an old man as he becomes younger and younger.
Original Text / PDF (1,601 words)
General Comments
We are not given the names of any of the characters in this story. When the narrator describes how the old man looked as he became younger, he uses the allusion: It was Aeson renewed and thankless. This gives a clue to the title, which can also be found at the beginning of Act 5 in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:
In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson.
In Greek mythology Aeson was the father of Jason, hero of the famous Argonauts story. Aeson was king of Iolcus, but had the crown taken from him by his half-brother Pelias. When Jason returned from his adventures, he found his father alive but very old and frail. Medea, a sorceress who Jason had married while on his journey, made Aeson young again by giving him a magic potion. Unfortunately, from then on, none of these people could be described as having lived “happily ever after”. But that is another story!