There is not a word of all this which is “Protestant invention,” for though I have poetised or written up a very rude text, the narrative is strictly as I received it. There is one point in it worth noticing, that it is a matter of very general conviction in Italy that in such matters of Church discipline as are involved in this story, it is the small flies who are caught in the web, while the great ones burst buzzing through it without harm, or that the weak and poor (who are very often those with the best hearts and principles) are most cruelly punished, where a bold, sensual, vulgar frate makes light of and easily escapes all accusations.
There is something sadly and strangely affecting in the conception of a simply good and loving nature borne down by the crush of the world and misapplied morality—or clerical celibacy—into total wretchedness—a diamond dissolved to air. One in reading this seems to hear the sad words of one who thought his own name was written in water:
“I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
Upon the skirts of human nature dwelling
Alone. I chant alone the holy mass,
While little signs of life are round me kneeling,
And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
And thou art distant in Humanity!”
THE MYSTERIOUS FIG-TREE
a legend of the via del fico
“In every plant lie marvellous mysteries,
In every flower there is a dream divine;
The fig-tree bears the measure of a life,
And, as it leaves or fruits, our lives do pass,
And all things in each other subtly blend.”“Ha chiappato il fico—ficum capit.”—Old Proverbs.
“Quidam itidem medium digitum ostendunt, idque in Hispania adhuc dicitur fieri, et Fica appellator, hic illudendi actus, de quo Eryc. Puteanus, loc. cit., p. 70.”—Curiosus Amuletorum Spectator, D. Wolf, 1692.
The following tale is, for reasons which I will subsequently explain, one of the most remarkable which I have collected:
La Via del Fico.
“There stood formerly in the Via del Fico a very ancient palace with a garden, in which there grew a fig-tree which was said to have grown of itself, or without ever having been planted. This tree bore much fruit of great beauty.
“But however proud the owner of the tree was of its beauty, or however much he might desire to have its fruit, something always strangely occurred to prevent its being enjoyed. For when any one was about to pluck it, there suddenly appeared a great black dog, who, seizing men or women by their garments, dragged them away, beginning to howl and bay. [205] And then they hurried away and let the figs alone, in order to make the dog cease his terrible unearthly baying; for it is believed to be an omen of death when a dog utters such sounds, it being
such a presage of disaster as when a civetta or small owl hoots on the roof.