[438] It appears to me that the same confusion arose between coluber and columba as between chelüdros, a kind of serpent, and chelidôn, a swallow. The beautiful maiden upon a tree occurs even in the Tuti-Name, i. 178, seq.
[439] ii. 7, and v. 9
[440] They were related to me at Antignano near Leghorn by the peasant woman Uliva Selvi:—
A gentleman had twelve sons and one daughter, who had, by enchantment, been metamorphosed into an eagle, and was kept in a cage. The father takes the twelve sons to mass every day; every day he meets an old beggar-woman and gives alms to her; one day, however, he has no money with him, and therefore gives her nothing; the old woman curses him, wishing that he may never see his sons again. No sooner said than done; the twelve sons become twelve doves and fly away. The despairing father and mother begin to weep; in their despair they forget to feed the eagle. Opposite the gentleman's house the king lived, who becomes enamoured of the eagle as though of a beautiful maiden; he has her stolen and replaced by another eagle. Not far thence there lived a washerwoman who had such a beautiful daughter that she never let her go out except at night. They wash at the fountain surrounded by poplar-trees; at midnight, as they wash, they hear a noise among the poplar-trees, and the maiden is afraid. One night they listen and hear the doves speaking and telling one another the incidents of the day, where they had been and what they had been doing. They then fly into a beautiful garden; the girl follows them; they enter into a beautiful palace, and the washerwoman relates what she has seen to the gentleman, who rejoices, and promises a great reward to the washerwoman if she will show him where his sons go to sleep. Both father and mother go to see; the pigeons speak, and say, "Were our mother to see us ..."; they then fly away. The gentleman then consults an astrologer, who advises him to allure the old witch into his house by the promise of alms, to shut her up in a room, and to compel her by main force to indicate the means of turning the pigeons into youths once more, or else to kill her. The old woman gives a powder which, when scattered on the highest mountain, will make the pigeons return home. The father goes to the mountain, scatters the powder and returns home, where he finds his sons, who are inquiring after the eagle. They go to see it and do not recognise it; they complain to their mother of this. Meanwhile, the young king is always near his eagle as if making love to it; and his mother is displeased at it. The twelve brothers meet a fairy who, for some alms, tells who has their eagle, and that it will soon return home a beautiful maiden. And the eagle becomes a beautiful girl and is married by the king.
There was once a king who had a handsome son, enamoured of a beautiful princess. He is carried off with two servants by the magicians and transformed into a pigeon; the servants undergo the same metamorphosis; one becomes green, one red, and the other greyish violet (pavonazzo). They take him into a beautiful palace where he must stay for seven years. Each has a large basin,—one is of gold, another of silver, and the third of bronze. When they plunge into them, they become three handsome youths. The princess, meanwhile, is dying to know where her lover is gone; she goes to have her hair combed on a terrace; the three pigeons carry away her looking-glass, then the ribbon of her hair, and then her comb. A great festival occurs in this town, to which the girls of the land go by night; on the way, one of them, near the break of day, turns aside for a few minutes; she sees a golden gate, finds a little gold key on the earth, opens the door and enters into a fine garden. At the end of the path there is a beautiful palace, into which she goes; she finds the three basins of gold, silver, and bronze, and sees the pigeons become young men. Meanwhile the king's daughter falls ill of grief, and is to all appearance dying; the king resolves to have her cured at any cost. The girl who had been in the place relates to the king's daughter all that she has seen; the latter is cured and goes with the girl to the palace; they find it, enter, and see a table laid for three persons; the two girls hide themselves. The prince and the princess meet with one another; but the prince, upon seeing her, is full of despair, saying that her impatience has prolonged the enchantment for seven years more, whilst it had at the time only three more days to run. He becomes a pigeon again; she must stay for seven years upon a tower exposed to all the inclemency of the seasons. Seven years pass by; the princess has become so ugly that she looks like a beast, with long hair all over her burned skin. The enchantment comes to an end for him after seven years; he goes to look for her; she says, "How much have I suffered for you!" The prince does not recognise her, and leaves her; she is left naked in a dense forest, and goes to seek her father. Night comes on, and the princess and her servant-maid do not know where to take refuge; they climb up a tree, whence they perceive a light. They walk towards it and find a beautiful little palace; a beautiful lady, a fairy, shows herself, and asks, "Is this you, Caroline?" This was the princess's name. But the fairy can give no news of the prince, and sends her on to another fairy, her sister, with the same result; she then goes to a third fairy, walking a double distance each time. The three fairies were three queens who had been betrayed by the same young prince. The third fairy gives to the princess a magical rod; she must go to the prince and do to him what he did to her—spit in his face, to wit. She is brought in a boat before the young king's palace, and there, following the fairy's instructions, she raises, by means of the rod, a beautiful palace, a palace more beautiful than that of the king, with a beautiful fountain. The young king wishes to go and see it; he sees a beautiful princess and kisses his hand to her, but she shuts the window in his face. He then invites her to dinner, but she refuses. He sends her a magnificent diamond, which she gives to her majordomo, saying that she has many more beautiful. He then sends her a splendid dress, which can be taken in the palm of the hand; she tears it into pieces and gives it to the cook to be used for kitchen purposes. The young king becomes passionately enamoured of her, and sends to her his best watch, which she gives also to her majordomo. He falls ill of a dreadful fever and wishes to marry her; he sends his mother. The princess laughs at the prince and refuses to come, saying, "Why does he not come himself?" His mother begs again that she will come. "Let him come," she answers; and at last she consents to come if they will make from her palace to that of the king a covered way so well and thickly made that not a ray of light can enter, and which she may be able to pass through with her equipage. Half way, the covering opens, and the sunbeams enter, upon which she disappears. (Cfr. the Indian myth of Urvaçî). The king being about to die, his mother returns to the princess, who demands that they bring him to her as if dead, in a bier. The king confesses that he has betrayed four maidens, and that it is on account of the fourth that he is coming to such a miserable end. The princess laughs at him and spits twice in his face; the third time he rises again, they are reconciled and married. (The spitting of the princess, which makes the dead prince rise again, is the dew of the ambrosia, or of spring, which brings the sun to life again.)—Cfr. the stories ii. 5, iv. 8, of the Pentamerone, and v. 22 of Afanassieff.
[441] It is said of the widowed turtle-dove that it will never drink again in any fountain of limpid water for fear of reviving the image of its lost companion by seeing its own in the water. The Christians pretend that the voice of the turtle-dove represents the cry, the sighing, and afterwards, for the resurrection of Christ, the joy of Mary Magdalen. Ælianos says that the turtle-dove is sacred not only to the goddess of love, and to the goddess of harvests, but also to the funereal Parcæ.
[442] In the legend of St Remy it is a dove that carries to the saint the flagon of water with which he must baptize King Clodoveus.
"Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens
Perambulabit omnium cubilia,
Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus?
Cinæde Romule, hæc videbis et feres?"
The chastity and the proverbial conjugal fidelity attributed to doves is here denied. Catullus had evidently closely observed the habits of these animals, which are sometimes, on the contrary, of a shameless infidelity. I have seen a white dove, who, in the presence of his wife, intent upon hatching her eggs, violated the nuptial bed of a gray dove, at a moment when the jealous husband was eating; the wife accepted the caresses of the husband and of the lover in the same passive attitude.