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.”