Then there came the fourth, called Diomira, and she brought a splendid crown of —. [68] And Virgil preferred this to all, and gave the prize to Diomira. So he bade them all come the next evening to a grand festival. And when they came, it was indeed a wonderful assembly, for there were present, and in life, all the statues from all the palaces. They came down from their pedestals and danced in the house of Virgilio—nor did they return until the early dawn; and so it came to pass that on that night all the statues spoke and danced.
“They danced so merrily all the night,
Till the sun came in with a rosy light,
And touched the statues fair,
When in an instant every one
Was changed again to marble stone.
Per Bacco! I was there!”
It is not remarkable that there should be so many tales in Italy of statues speaking or coming to life. They abounded among the Romans, and are to be found in later literature. Bonifacius, in his “Ludicra,” as I have said, collects instances of men who have loved statues, and Zaghi, whom I shall quote again directly, does the same. But the idea of images speaking is so natural that we need not have recourse to tradition to account for its existence.
Among the archaic and very curious traditions in this tale we are told that Virgil rubbed the statues with human fat and the blood of a wild boar. Both of these occur not only in witchcraft, but also in the wild science of the earlier time, as potent to give or take life. For the blood of a boar that of a bull is equivalent. In the recipes for preparing the celebrated poison of the Borgias one or the other is presented. That of the boar still exists in the poisoning common in Germany caused by eating Blutwurst. In the “Selva di Curiosità,” by Gabriel Zaghi, 1674, there is a chapter (xx.) devoted to showing that bull’s blood—sangue di toro—is a deadly poison; to prove this he cites Plutarch, Pliny, Dioscorides, and others, from which it appears that the idea is ancient. That it gives life to statues in the tale is quite in keeping with the strange and rude homœopathy which is found in Paracelsus, and all the writers on mystical medicine of his time, from which Hahnemann drew his system, i.e., that what will kill can also cure, or revive.
It is very remarkable that in this tale Agamene brings a diamond. According to Hyginius (“Astronom.,” II., 13, vide Friedrich, “Symbolich der Natur.,” p. 658), Aega (or Aegamene) nursed the youthful Jupiter. In another legend (No. 1) Virgil is the son of Jove. “Aega was a daughter of the Sun, and of such brilliancy that the Titans, dazzled by her splendour, begged their mother Gäa, or Gea, to hide her in the earth.” This clearly indicates a diamond. Jupiter transformed her into a star.
It is simply possible, and only a conjecture of mine, that in Diomira we find the name of Diomedea, the Diomedea necessitas of Plato (“De Repub,” lib. 6), who carried all before her. Diomira conquers all her rivals in this legend. She is the Venus Victrix.
I cannot help believing when we find such curious instances of tradition as that of Aega, or Agamene, surviving in these tales, that there is a possibility that the whole story may, more or less, be of classic or very ancient origin. We are not as yet able to prove it, and so there are none who attach much value to these fragments. But a day will come when scholars will think more of them. That there still survives a great deal of Græco-Latin lore which was not recorded by classic writers has become to us a certainty. Therefore it is possible, though not now to be proved, that these statues of Virgil had a common origin with the image of Selostre, or Testimonium luminis, described by Pausanius, which spoke when the sun rose or at the Aurora.
If it be possible, and it certainly is conjectural, that Diomira is the same with Diadumena, we have beyond question a very remarkable illustration of old tradition surviving in a popular tale; for Diadumena, or “She who binds her forehead with a fillet,” or band, was the name of one of the most beautiful statues of Polycletus. According to Winkelmann (“Ist. dell Acte,” lib. 6, cap. 2), this statue was very frequently copied and familiarly known. A statue in the Villa Farnese is believed to be an imitation of it. Were this conjecture true, the gift brought by Diomira would be the fillet which Virgil wears by tradition, as typical of a poet. An ornament, fillet, or tiara is, effectively, a crown. Therefore, the meaning of the myth is that a true poet is such by necessity; he cannot help it—poeta nascitur, non fit.
VIRGIL, THE LADY, AND THE CHAIR.
“Now the golden chair wherein Juno was compelled to sit, by the artifice of Vulcan, means that the earth is the mother of riches, and with it that part of the air which cannot leave the earth, Juno being air.”—Natalis Comitis: Mythologia, lib. ii., 79 (1616).
“Thou wolt algates wete how we be shape!
Thou shalt hereafterward, my brother dere,
Come wher thee needeth not of me to lere,
For thou shalt by thine own experience
Conne in a chaiere rede of this sentence
Better than Virgile while he was on live
Or Dante also.”Chaucer: The Frere’s Tale.