Another priest who, hearing the cry which he had uttered, entered his room, said:
“I know that head. It is of a man whom I confessed, and who was beheaded three months ago at Siena.”
And three days after this the priest who had insulted the goddess died.
In a single incident this tale recalls that of Falkenstein, one of the synonyms of the wild huntsman in Germany, of whom it is said that as he passed by, a reckless fellow wished him luck, whereupon he heard the words, “Thou hast wished me luck; thou shalt share the game;” whereat there was thrown to him a great piece of carrion. And soon after he died. [78b] But the true plot of this narrative is the conduct of the goddess Diana, who rewards the children for their worship and punishes the priest for his sacrilege.
And, noting the sincere spirit of heathenism which inspires many of these legends, the belief in folletti and fate, and curiously changed forms of the gods of Græco-Roman mythology, still existing among the peasants, it is worth inquiring whether, as the very practical Emperor Julian believed, a sincerely religious and moral spirit, under any form, could not be adapted to the progress of humanity? The truth is that as the heathen gods are one and all, to us, as something theatrical and unreal, we think they must have been the same to their worshippers. Through all the Renaissance to the present day the pretended appreciation and worship of classic deities, and with them of classic art and mythology, reminds one of the French billiard-player Berger, who, when desirous of making a very brilliant exhibition of his skill, declared that he would invoke the god of billiards! They may seem beautiful, but they are dead relics, and the worst is that no one realizes now that they ever really lived, moved, and had a being in the human heart. And yet the Italian witch still has a spark of the old fire.
Diana Artemis is known to poets and scholars in certain varied characters thus summed up by Browning:
“I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Through Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace;
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleep,
And every feathered mother’s callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness
Of men; the chaste adore me.”
But to her only believers and worshippers now left on earth—such as Maddalena—Diana is far more than this, for she is the queen of all witchcraft, magic, sorcery, the mistress of all the mysteries, of all deep knowledge, and therefore the greatest of the goddesses—all the rest, in fact, except Venus and Bacchus, who only exist in oaths, being now well-nigh forgotten and unknown to them.
VIRGIL AND THE SPIRIT OF MIRTH.
“’Tis an ancient tale that a boy for laughing at Ceres was turned into a stone. For truly too much merriment hardens us all.”—Comment on L. M. Brusonii ‘Facetiæ.’