The Unpublished Legends of Virgil

by Charles Godfrey Leland

VIRGILIO AS A PHYSICIAN, OR VIRGIL AND THE MOUSE.

“Now to signify destruction and death they paint a mouse. For it gnaweth all things, and works ruin.”—Hori Apolli: Hieroglyphica; Rome, 1606.

There once lived in Florence a young gentleman—un gran signore—who wedded a beautiful young lady to whom he was passionately attached, as she indeed was for a time to him. But “fickle and fair is nothing rare,” and it came to pass that before long she gave her love again to an intimate friend of her husband. And the latter did not indeed perceive the cause, but he was much grieved at the indifference to him which his wife began to show.

Then the wife began to tell her lover how her husband had scolded her for her neglect, and how much afraid she was lest their intrigue would be discovered, and that she was so uneasy that she was ready to poison her spouse “if she could only get rid of him!”

The lover replied that there were many ways to get rid of a man without really killing him, for that a violent death would lead to suspicion, inquiry, scandal, and perhaps legal punishment. And then he hinted that a better method would be to consult a witch.

The lady lost no time in running to one, to whom she told her whole story, and what she wanted, and as she began by paying a large fee, the sorceress promised she should have her wish.

Then the witch prepared with magic skill a flask of water, and a powder. The water she gave to the wife, and bade her sprinkle it over her husband’s clothes. But she changed herself into a mouse, and having been carried to the bedroom which the married couple occupied, she gnawed a hole in the mattress, and crawling in, dragged after her the bag, and so remained hidden.

When the husband went to bed, there came over him an utter weakness and sickness, so that he lay in pain as if dead, and this grew worse day by day. His parents in vain called in the first physicians, and every remedy was resorted to without result.

Then Virgilio, who knew much and suspected all the rest of this affair, was angry that so vile a woman and her gallant should inflict such torture on an excellent and innocent man, and resolved to have a hand in the affair.

Therewith he dressed himself as a medico, or doctor, from some distant land, saying that he had heard of this extraordinary case of illness, and would like to see the sufferer. To which the parents replied that he was welcome to do so, since all the professors of medicine in Florence could make nothing of it.

The doctor looked steadily for some time at the patient, who appeared to be in such utter prostration and misery as might have moved the hardest heart. By him sat his wife, pretending to weep, but counting to herself with pleasure the time which would pass before her husband should die—giving now and then a suspicious glance at the new-comer.

Then Virgilio said to the wife:

“Signora, I beg you to leave the room for a while. I must be alone with this man!”

Whereupon she, with a great show of tears and passion, declared she would not leave the room, because her husband might die at any minute, and she could never forgive herself were she to be absent, and so on. To which Virgilio angrily replied, that she might depart in peace, with the assurance that her husband would be cured. So she went out, cursing him in her heart, if there was a chance that he could do as he declared.

Then Virgilio took a mirror which he had brought with him, and placing it before the eyes of the invalid, bade him look at it as steadily and as long as he could. The young man did so, and then said, as if in despair:

“For me there is no remedy, O doctor, for what you show me is worse than my disorder, as I supposed it to be. Truly I see death, and not myself.”

“Courage!” replied Virgilio. “You shall be cured.”

“Cure me,” he answered, “and you shall have all that I possess.”

“Nay, I will cure you first,” said Virgilio, “and then settle on easier terms.”

The patient looked steadily at the mirror. Virgilio rapped thrice with a wand, when there suddenly leaped from the bed a mouse, which uttered three horrible, piercing screams. The doctor bade the invalid continue to look steadily at himself in the mirror, and for his life not to cease doing so. Without turning round, the doctor ordered the mouse to enter the bed and lick up and bring away with her on her tongue all the water which the wife had sprinkled on the clothes. And this done, he bade her bring again out of the bed all the powder which she had placed there. Which being effected, he ordered the mouse to make of it a pellet, and devour it; but here she resisted, for to do that meant death to her and a cure to the invalid.

But the doctor was inflexible, and she had to obey. Nor had she begun to eat it before he bade the husband rise, which he did, feeling perfectly recovered, though much confused at such a sudden change.

Then Virgilio ordered the mouse to mount the bed, and lo! she changed to a woman, for she was, of course, the witch who had done all this devil’s work. And the sorceress bade them call parents and wife and all. And when they came the witch said:

“Evil my life has been, and evil will be the death which in a few minutes will come to me; yet am I not so evil as this woman, who would have killed by the worst suffering the husband who loved her. For hell hath many who are bad, but the worst are they who return evil for good. And he who hath ended this thing by his power is the great Virgilio, who is the lord of magic in all this land.”

Then she told, step by step, how the wife had turned her heart from her husband, almost as soon as she was married, and wished to kill him, and had paid her to bewitch him. Then Virgilio opened the window and the witch indeed died, or it was the last seen of her, for with a horrible howl she vanished in the night, flying away.

The husband recovered, and would have given Virgilio all his wealth, but he would accept nothing but the young man’s friendship. And the guilty wife was imprisoned for life in a castle, far away in the mountains and alone.

Virgil appears as a physician so distinctly in this and other tales as to induce the question whether he had not, quite apart from his reputation as poet and magician, some fame as professor of the healing art. And in fact, as I have shown in the legend of Virgil and the Spirit of Mirth, he on one occasion at least is, by Pæonia, identified with Esculapius. The latter is described as having “a countenance bright with joy and serenity,” and being very benevolent and genial—wherein he agrees with the poet. The God of Medicine, it is expressly stated, used “sweet incantations,” or poetical spells, which is also significant. He was also associated with Apollo and the Muses, as in the temple of Messina. The author of the great “Dizionario Storico Mitologico” (1824) plainly declares that “Esculapius is another form of Apollo, in whom poetry and medicine were combined. In the temple devoted to him in Sycione, Esculapius is associated with Diana. In a Roman bas-relief he appears with the Three Graces; in one of these legends Virgil is associated with four Venuses.” Making every allowance, it must be admitted that, comparing all that is known of the God of Medicine with what appears in these legends of the Mantuan bard, there is a remarkable general likeness between the two. Virgil is also, here and there, curiously identified with the serpent and the staff, which were the symbols of Esculapius; and, as I have before noted, Buddha, who had so much in common with Virgil, was in his first incarnation a physician.

THE ONION OF CETTARDO.

“On, Stanley, on!”—Marmion.

“Were I in noble Stanley’s place,
When Marmion urged him to the chase,
The word which you would then descry
Might bring a tear to every eye.”—Anonymous.

Virgil is introduced, I may say, almost incidentally in the following tale, not by any means as coryphæus or hero, as is indeed the case in several other stories, which fact, on due reflection, is of importance, because it indicates unmistakably that he is so well known in popular tradition as to be recognisable even in a minor rôle. It is as when one swears by a saint, or Bacchus—in Florence one hears the latter invoked forty times where a Christian deity is apostrophized once—’tis not to form a portion of the sentence, but to give it force, as Chinese artillerymen, when they fire a ball at an enemy, sometimes grease the mouth of a gun, to increase the loudness of the report and thereby frighten the foe. Which figure of a saint is not that of Saint Malapropos, because, as the reader may note in another tale, Virgil is very seriously described as a santo.

Now to the narrative. Sancte Virgile, ora pro nobis!

In very ancient times there were few families in Cettardo, and these were all perfectly equal, there being among them neither rich nor poor. They all worked hard in fields or forests for a living, and were like a company of friends or brothers.

And of evenings, when they were not too weary, they met many together in some house, all in love and harmony, to talk about the crops, and their children, or repeat the rosario, [203] or discuss their clothing, or cattle, or whatever interested them.

These people were all as one, and had no head or chief. [204a] But one evening a very little girl came out with a thing (sorti con una cosa) which astonished all who were present, because the child had received no instruction, and did not know what a school meant. And what she said was this:

“Babbo—papa—I wish to tell thee something in presence of all who are here assembled, with all due respect to them, since there are certainly so many here who could with greater propriety set it forth. [204b] Therefore, I trust you will pardon and bear with me, because I am but an infant.”

Then all exclaimed in chorus: “Speak, and we will listen to thee!”

And then the infant, in this fashion, spoke:

“Know that this night I have spoken with a spirit, the bel Folettino col beretta rossa—the beautiful fairy with the red cap—and it told me that for this our land we have no name or coat of arms. But the time has come to have that which shall represent the country, and therefore we should choose a chief who will open commerce for us, and found a school so that our young people shall escape from ignorance.”

“Truly, thou hast spoken well!” cried all present. “Evviva il capo—hurrah for a chief!—and that chief shall be thy father, dear child!”

“Moreover,” added the good girl, “I will, to show my gratitude, give you the design for the armorial bearings, and in due time tell you all that is needful to be done. All of that will I find out, and also a name for the country.”

“Do so, and deserve our gratitude.”

“I thank you again,” said the girl, “and I will pay attention to the subject, since you show such sympathy.”

The next day she went to herd a flock of sheep, as was her custom; and then, lying down on the ground as wild boars are wont to do, [204c] said:

“Spirito, capo di tutti i spiriti!
Re dei ré dei Maghi!
Portami qui presenti un hoggetto
Che possa servirmi per rappresentare
Un arme.”

“Una voce le rispose:

“Chiama e chiama più forte.
E chiama ancora per tre volte
E chiama il tuo prottetore,
Chi é con te a tutte le ore
E mai non ti lascera se sempre
Lui invochera.”

“Spirit, who art the chief of all the spirits!
Who art the king of all the sorcerers!
Bring unto me some object which may serve
To represent our land, and be its crest.”

“To which a voice replied:

“Call out aloud, then more forcibly,
And yet again three times, and unto him
Who is thy guardian and ever with thee,
And who will never leave thee—call to him!”

“And who art thou who speakest to me?” asked the girl.

“I am the Spirit of the Red Cap.”

“And who is my protector?”

“The magician Virgil,” replied the Voice.

Then she invoked Virgil, who appeared in person, and asked what she would have.

She replied that she had been charged to find a name and object to represent the land.

“It is well,” answered Virgil. “I have already written the name on a leaf; now take this thing in thy hand”—here he gave her an onion—“and cast it into yonder cavern, from which there is an underground way.”

The girl obeyed; the onion spun round and rolled away; she followed it afar, till at last it stopped at a leaf on which was written “Cettardo.” And it was in this spot where the onion stopped that the town in after time was built, and where the girl found the leaf is now the municipal palace. And so, one by one, great buildings rose. Thus came the name and arms of Cettardo.

In due time the maid had a lover, and it was said that these two were the only ones who could go through the subterranean passage.

And it hath been, and may be still, proved that any person attempting this passage will after a few steps be suffocated, and can go no further.

If we compare this legend with other traditions, there can be little doubt that it is at least of Roman origin. The great veneration for the onion among the Egyptians—“Happy people,” wrote Juvenal, “to have gods growing in their gardens!”—which passed to the Romans, probably, in later days through the priests of Serapis and Isis, [206] and the many mysteries connected with it, fully account for its being chosen as the symbol of a city. Its traditions were greatly mingled and confused with those of the garlic and the leek, but it was above all other plants a protector against sorcery; that is, against all evil influence. Where onions could not help, nothing availed, or as it was expressed, bulbus nihil profuerit. It would appear from the conjectures of Nork (Andeutung eines Systemes der Mythologie, p. 125) that the onion was the sign or crest of the pyramid of Cheops, as it is of Cettardo.

It is, however, in the mention of a subterranean passage full of mephitic vapour, which seems to have no connection with the tale whatever, that the clue to the whole tradition may be found. The people wanting a name and a site for a city, receive them from a pythoness or sibyl, the two being identified in many legends. The grotto of the Sybil near Naples is approached by a long subterranean road, over which I have myself passed—being carried on the back of a strong peasant-guide. Just in the middle of the wet, winding cavern, I said: “You are a good horse.”

“I am particularly good at eating macaroni,” he replied, and stopped. This was equivalent to begging.

“Horses who talk need the spur,” I replied, giving him a gentle reminder with my heel. He laughed, and trotted on. However, he got his “macaroni.”

That the pythoness, or female oracle, was first intoxicated with the vapour of carbonic acid gas in a cavern, and that her utterances were recorded on leaves which blew about loosely and were then gathered and put together, is well known, and it is this, apparently, which is meant in this tale by the flying leaf bearing the name of Cettardo. Plutarch, in his “Treatise on Abandoned Oracles,” declares that “the terrestrial effluvium was the conductor of the god into the body of the Pythia.” As the vapours disappeared, the oracle became dumb, or, as Cicero expresses it:

“They ceased because this terrestrial virtue, which moved the soul of the Pythia by divine inspiration, disappeared in time, as we have seen rivers dried up or turned away into other beds.”

The onion was a symbol of fertility and increase of population, therefore it was well adapted to serve as a fetish for a new city. It was also among the Egyptians par eminence typical of the resurrection, so that no woman was buried without one. [207]

It may be observed that in this legend Virgil appears as a guardian spirit or god, certainly not as a mortal.

It would almost seem as if there were an undercurrent of genial satire or mockery in the part where the young Pythia graciously assures the simple peasants that, out of sheer gratitude and to oblige them, she will consult with—of all the gods—the Robin Good-fellow, or goblin of the red-cap! who in all tales, Italian as well as English, is ever a tricksy sprite, more given to teasing and kissing servant-girls, and playing with children and cats, than aught more dignified. When we remember that the object of this gracious benevolence is to make her father chief or king, it verily appears as if the whole were a “put-up job” between parent and child.

THE END.

Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London.