VIRGIL AND THE GODDESS VESTA.
“Put out the light, and then—put out the light!”
“Ut inquit Hecateus in Genealogiis: Enim vero cùm duæ essent Vestæ, per antiquiorem Saturni matrem; terram; at per juniorem ignem purum ætheris significarunt.”—Mythologia Natalis Comitis, A.D. 1616.
Many centuries have passed since there was (worshipped) in Florence a goddess who was the great spirit of virtue and chastity, (yet) when a maid had gone astray she always devoted herself to worship the beautiful Avesta, as this deity was called, and the latter never failed in such case to get her devotee out of the difficulty. Her temple was that building which is now called the Baptistery of Saint John, and she was the goddess of light, as of candles, torches, and all that illuminates. And Avesta was, as I have said, known as the deity of virtue, albeit many of the people shrugged their shoulders when they heard this, being evidently strongly inclined to doubt, but they said nothing for fear of punishment.
For it was rumoured that Avesta had many lovers, and that in the rites of her religion there were secrets too dark to discover, and that as everything in her worship was involved in mystery and carried on occultly, it followed, of course, that it involved something wrong. And it was observed that once a month many women who worshipped her met in her temple by night, and that they were accompanied by their lovers, who with them adored the goddess in the form of a large lighted lamp. But that when this rite was at an end and the multitude had departed, there remained unnoted a number, by whom the doors were closed and the light extinguished, when a general orgy ensued, no one knowing who the others might be. [98a] And it was from this came the saying which is always heard when two lovers are seated together by a light and it goes out, that Avesta did it. [98b]
There was in Florence a young lord who loved a lady of great beauty. But she had a bitter rival, who to cross their love had recourse to sorcery or witchcraft, and so “bound” or cast on him a spell which weakened his very life, and made him impotent and wretched, that his very heart seemed to be turned to water.
And this spell the witch worked by taking a padlock and locking it, saying:
“Chiudo la catena,
Ma non chiudo la catena,
Chiudo il corpo e l’anima
Di questo bel signor ingrato,
Chi non ha voluto,
Corrispondermi in amore, [98c]
Ha preferito un’ altra a me,
E questa io l’odio
Come odio la signorina,
Pure catena che incateni
Tanti diavoli tieni!
Tengo incatenata questo signor
Fino a mio comando
Che nessuno la possa disciogliere
E incatenato possa stare,
Fino che non si decidera
Di sposarmi. . . .”“Now here I close the lock,
Yet ’tis not a lock which I close;
I shut the body and soul
Of this ungrateful lord,
Who would not meet my love,
But loves another instead,
Another whom I hate,
Whom I here lock and chain
With devil’s power again.
I hold this man fast bound
That none shall set him free
Until I so command,
And bound he shall remain
Till he will marry me.”
One day Virgil was passing the Piazza del Duomo, when he met with the young man who had thus been bound or bewitched, and the victim was so pale and evidently in terrible suffering, that the great poet and magician, who was ever pitying and kind, was moved to the heart, and said:
“Fair youth, what trouble have you, that you seem to be in such suffering?”
The young man replied that he, being in love unto life and death, had been bewitched by some malignant sorcery.
“That I can well see,” replied the sage, “and I am glad that it will be an easy thing for me to cure you. Go thou into a field which is just beyond Fiesole, in a place among the rocks. There thou wilt find a flat stone bearing a mark. Lift it, and beneath thou wilt find a padlock and chain. Take this golden key: it is enchanted, for with it thou canst open any lock in the world of door or chain. [99] Keep the lock, open it, and then go to the Temple of Vesta and return thanks with prayer, and wait for what will come.”
So the young man did as Virgil had told him, and among the rocks found the stone and the padlock, and went to the Temple of Avesta, where he opened the lock and made the prayer to the goddess, which having done, he fell asleep, and no one beheld him.
And while he was there the young lady entered the Baptistery to worship Avesta, to offer her devotions, which being ended, she sat down and also fell into a deep sleep, and no one observed her.
But later in the night, when the doors were closed and the light extinguished, and the worshippers who remained were calling “Avesta!” the two sleepers who were side by side were awakened by a rustling of silk, and this was caused by the dress of the goddess, who roused them. And the young man found himself restored to vigorous health and unwonted passion, and quickly noting that a lady was by him, and carried away by feelings beyond his control, embraced and kissed her—nor did she indeed resist, for the will of Avesta was on them both. But noting that the lady had a silk handkerchief [100] partly out of her pocket, he adroitly stole it, putting in its place his own, and so with a kiss he left her, neither knowing who the other was. But on awaking, as if it were from a dream or a delirium, the lady was overcome with shame and grief, and could only think that madness or magic had overcome her reason, to cause her to yield as she had done. For this morning she felt more passionately in love with her betrothed than she had ever done before, and this was because the spell which had bound her was broken with the opening of the padlock.
But what was the astonishment of the lover, who was also restored to all his health and strength, when in the morning he looked at the handkerchief which he had carried away and found embroidered on it the arms and name of his love! So he went to visit her, and his greeting was:
“Signorina, have you lost a handkerchief?”
“Not that I know of,” replied the lady, amazed.
“Look at the one in your pocket, and then at this,” was his laughing reply.
She did so, and understanding all in an instant, cried out in shame and horror, while she became at first like blood and then milk. Then the gentleman said:
“It seems to me, Signorina, that we must by mistake have exchanged handkerchiefs last night in the dark, and no wonder, considering the fervency of our devotions. And since we have begun to worship and pray so devoutly, and have entered on such a good path, it were a pity for us to turn back, and therefore it were well for us to continue to travel on it hand in hand together. But I propose that instead of changing pocket-handkerchiefs, we exchange rings before the altar and get married.”
The lady laughed and replied:
“I accept with great pleasure, Signore, the handkerchief; just as the women in Turkey do when it is thrown to them. And you know the proverb:
“‘La donna chi prende
Tosto si rende
E poi si vende.’”“She who will take will give herself away,
And she who gives will sell herself, they say.”
“Even so will I sell mine for thine; but you must take the bargain on the nail, and the ball on the bound in the game of love.”
“Yes,” replied the young man; “I do so with all my heart. But as for our handkerchiefs, I now see that it is true that the peasant does not always know what it is that he carries home in his bag from the mill. Thanks be to Avesta that we found such good flour in our sacks!”
“To Vesta and to Virgil be all praise!” replied the lady. “But I think that while we continue our daily worship in the temple, we will go there no longer by night. Vi sono troppo donne devote nel buio”—There are too many lady devotees there in the darkness.
As a mere story this legend were as well left out, but it is one of a hundred as regards curious relics of mythologic and other lore. Firstly, be it observed that a secret doctrine, or esoteric as opposed to exoteric teaching, was taught in all the mysteries of the gods. Diana, who is identical with Vesta, Avesta, or Hestia, as a goddess of light by night and also of chastity, had her lovers in secret. What further identifies the two is that in this tale girls who have got into trouble through love, pray to Vesta, even as Roman maids did under similar circumstances specially to Diana.
There is no historical proof whatever that the Baptistery was ever a temple of Vesta, but there is very remarkable circumstantial evidence to that effect which I have indicated in detail in an article in the Architectural Review. Both Vesta and Saint John were each in her or his religion the special deities or incarnations of Light or Fire, and Purity or Chastity. The temples of Vesta were like those of Mars, and Mars alone, either round, hexagonal, or square, to indicate the form attributed with variations to the world. The early tradition of all writers on Florence speaks of the Baptistery of Saint John as having been a temple of Mars, which legend the priests naturally endeavoured to deny, thinking it more devout and “genteel” to attribute its erection to a Christian Empress.
The binding and rendering impotent by means of a padlock, and forty other devices, to render married folk miserable, or lovers languid, was so common two centuries ago, that there is almost a literature, occult, theological, and legal, on the subject. The Rabbis say it was invented by Ham, the son of Noah. The superstition was generally spread in Greece and Rome. It is still very commonly believed in and practised by witches all over Europe, and especially by gipsies and the Italian strege.
What is above all to be remarked in this tale is that it recognises a double nature in Vesta—one as a chaste goddess of fire, the other of a voluptuous or generative deity, signified by extinguishing the lights. And this is precisely what the oldest writers declared, though it was quite forgotten in later times. As Natalis Comes declares, “There were two Vestas, one by the first wife of Saturn, another by the younger one, meaning the earth, the other fire,” as Ovid witnesses, “Fastorum,” lib. 6. In fact, there was a double or second to every one of the Greek or Etruscan gods. And this belief which was forgotten by the higher classes remained among the people. And it may be specially noted that the second Vesta was called the mother of the gods, as Strabo declares, and she was in fact the Venus of the primitive or Saturnian mythology.
THE STONE FISH, AND HOW VIRGIL MADE IT EATABLE.
“Virgille plus fu sapïens
Plus clerc, plus sage et plus scïens.
Que nul a son temps vesquist,
Et plus de grans merveilles fist
Pour voir il fist de grans merveilles;
Homs naturels ne fist pareilles.”Renars Contrefais, A.D. 1319.
In the old times, when things were so different from what they are now—the blue bluer, the red redder, when the grains of maize were as big as grapes, and grapes as big as pomegranates, and pomegranates as big as melons, and the Arno was always full of water, and the water so full of fine large fish that everybody had as many as he wanted for nothing, and the sun and moon gave twice as much light—there was, not far from Via Reggio, a castle, and the signore who owned it was a great bandit, who robbed all the country round, as all the gentlemen did in those times when they could, for it is true that with all the blessings of those days they had some curses!
One day there passed by a poor fisherman with an ass, and on it was a very large, wonderfully fine fish, a tunny, which was a load for the beast, and which was intended for the good monks of an abbey hard by, to whom the man hoped to sell it, partly for money and partly for blessings. When lo! he was met by Il Bandito, as the signore was called, and, as you may suppose, the gentleman was not slow to seize the prey, which fell as it were like a roasted lark from heaven into his mouth. And to mock the poor fellow, the signore gave him a small bottle of wine to repay him.
Then the fisherman in his despair cursed the Bandito to his face, saying:
“May God forget and the devil remember thee, and as thou hast mocked my poverty, mayest thou pass centuries in worse suffering than ever was known to the poorest man on earth.
“Thou shalt live in groans and lamentations, thou accursed of God and despised by the devil; thou shalt never have peace by day or night!
“Thou shalt be in utter wretchedness till thou shalt see someone eat this fish.
“‘In pietra cambiato
E in pietra sarai confinata.’”“Thyself a stone, as thou shalt find,
And in a stone thou’lt be confined,
And the fish likewise a stone shall be
Till someone shall eat it and set thee free!”
And as the poor man prophesied, it came to pass: the fish was changed into a stone, and the signore into a statue. And the latter stood in a corner of the dining-hall, and every day the fish was placed at dinner on the table, but no one could eat it.
So three hundred years passed away, and the lord who had inherited the castle had a beautiful daughter, who was beloved by a young signore named Luigi, who was in every way deserving of her, but whom the father disliked on account of his family. So when he asked the father for her hand, the latter replied that he might have it when he should have eaten the stone fish, and not till then. So the young man went away in grief.
One day, when this young gentleman was returning from the chase bearing two fine hares, he met Virgilio, who asked him to sell him one. Whereupon the young man replied: “Oh, take your pick of them, and welcome; but say nothing about payment. Perhaps some day you may do as much for me.”
“Perhaps,” replied Virgilio, “that day may be nearer than you think. I never make my creditors wait, nor let my debts run into arrears. What is there on earth which you most desire?”
“Truly it is something, signore, which I trow that neither you nor any man can render possible, for it is to eat the stone fish in the castle up there.”
“I think that it can be managed,” replied Virgil, with a smile. “Take this silver box full of salt, and when the fish is before you, sprinkle the salt on it, and it will grow tender and taste well, and you can eat it. But first say unto it:
“‘Se tu pesce sei fatto
Da un uomo, pel suo atto,
Rimane sempre come sei,
Ma se tu sei scongiurato,
O vere scongiurato,
Non restare pietra—ritorna come eri.’”“Fish, if once a man thou wert,
Then remain e’en as thou art!
But if a fish, I here ordain
That thou become a fish again.”
Then Luigi went to the castle, and was with much laughter placed before the fish, and the signore asked him if he would have a hammer to carve it with.
“Nay, I will eat it after my own fashion,” he replied. “I do but beg permission to use my own salt, and say my own grace.”
Then he sprinkled the salt and murmured the incantation, when the fish became soft and savoury, as if well cooked, and Luigi ate of it, till the signore of the castle was satisfied, and admitted that he had fulfilled the conditions—when lo! the fish became whole as before, and a stone again.
Then an old statue which was in the hall, in a corner of the wall, spoke and said:
“Now I am at peace, since the fish has been eaten.
“‘Dacche il pesce ha stato mangiato,
Io non sono più confinato.’”
And saying this, there went forth from the image a spirit-form, which vanished.
Then Luigi wedded the young lady of the castle, and Virgilio, who was present, promised the pair a happy life. And he said:
“Thou wilt be, O Luigi, the beginner of a family or race which, like the Holy Church, will have been founded on a stone, and while the Church lasts thy name shall endure.”
The concluding paragraph refers to pietra, a stone, and to the text, well known to the most ignorant Catholic, “Petrus es et super hanc petram edificabo ecclesiam meam,” whence it has been said that the Roman Church was founded on a pun, to which the reply might be, “And what if it was?” since there was no suspicion in early times that the pun, as a poetical form, might not be seriously employed in illustration. Dr. Johnson made the silly assertion that a pun upon a proper name is the lowest kind of wit, in which saying there is—as in many of his axioms—more sound than sense; nor is it altogether reverent or respectful, when we reflect that both Christ and Cicero used the despised figure of speech. In one of the tales in this collection the Emperor of Rome speaks of a wheat-bran (tisane) which had been ordered as “pigs’ broth,” which was exactly the term by which Cicero alluded to the Verrine law, which also bears that meaning. As his adversary was a Jew, and the query was, “What has a Hebrew to do with pig-broth, or pork-soup?”—i.e., the law of Verres—the joke, with all due deference to the law-giver Samuel, may be fairly called a very good one. [106]