Then Virgilio, gently removing the magic bouquet from the hand of the statue, stepped to the window and threw it down into the street—when lo! the lady flushed into life, and with a laugh asked them what they were all doing there? And then Eustachio burst out laughing for joy, and they danced in a circle round Virgilio. Eustachio paid down the thousand crowns, which Virgil gave as a wedding present to the bride—for of course there was a wedding, and a grander banquet than ever. But though he was the God of Mirth himself, Eustachio never declared after this that he would or could never mourn or think of grief.
What is remarkable in this tale is the confusion between the conception of the hero as a spirit, or the God of Mirth, and his social condition as a young Italian gentleman about town. It is this transition from the god to the popular hero, a mere mortal, which forms the subject of Heine’s “Gods in Exile.”
There is another Florentine legend, in which this god appears by the more appropriate name Momo, evidently Momus, in which a young lord who had never laughed in his life is made merry for ever by having presented to him the image of a laughing goblin, which one of his peasants had dug up in a ruin. Whenever he looks at it, he bursts into a roar of laughter, which has the effect of changing his character very much for the better.
What is perhaps most significant in this tale is the name Peonia. Pæonia in classic mythology was Minerva, as a healing goddess. As such, alone, she bears the serpent. Esculapius is termed by Claudian the Pæonio—dragon or snake. In reference to which I find the following in the “Dizionario Mitologico”:
“Peonia, an additional name of Minerva, worshipped . . . as guardian of health. Therefore she has for a tribute the serpent, as emblem of the art of healing. Peonico was a surname of Apollo.”
When medicine was synonymous with magic, Peonia-Minerva would naturally appear as one familiar with occult arts. The changing to a statue and being revived from a statue to life is a very evident symbol of raising from death to life. Æsculapius, who was the male equivalent of Peonia, revived corpses. As Minerva and other deities were familiar to the people as statues, in which there was believed to be a peculiar spirit or life, we can readily understand how any image of a goddess was supposed to be at times revived.
Peonia in our story works her miracle by means of flowers. This, if we are really dealing with an archaically old Italian tradition, is marvellously significant. The pœonia, or peony, or rose de Nôtre Dame, was believed in earliest Roman times to be primus inter magnos, the very first and strongest of all floral amulets, or to possess the greatest power in magic. This was due to its extreme redness, this colour alone having great force to resist the evil eye and sorcery. The most dreaded of all deities among the earliest Etrusco-Latin races was Picus, who appeared as a woodpecker, to which bird he had been changed by Circe. “Nam Picus, etiam rex, ab eadem Circe virga tactus, in volucrem picum evolavit,” as Tritonius declares. When people dug for treasure which was guarded by this dreaded bird, he slew them unless they bore as a protecting amulet the root of the peony. But there is a mass of testimony to prove that the pæonia, or peony, was magical. Many classic writers, cited by Wolf in his work on amulets, 1692, declare its root drives away phantasms and demons. It was held, according to the same writer, that the same root protected ships from storms and houses from lightning. It is true that this writer evidently confuses the peony with the poppy, but the former was from earliest times strong in all sorcery.
It is also curious that, in old tradition, Pygmalion the sculptor is represented as indifferent to women. Venus punishes him by making him fall in love with a statue. Eustachio, the Spirit of Mirth, declares that the death of his love would not cause him deep grief and for this Pæonia and Virgil change the lady into a marble image. It is the very same story, but with the plot reversed.
Peonia, or peony, regarded as the poppy, since the two very similar plants were beyond question often confused, had a deep significance as lulling to sleep—a synonym for death, a reviving force—and it was also an emblem of love and fertility (Pausanias, II., 10). Peonia lulls the lady to sleep with flowers, that is, into a statue.
I do not regard it as more than probable, but I think it possible that in this story we have one of the innumerable novelle or minor myths of the lesser gods, which circulated like fairy-tales among the Latin people, of which only a small portion were ever written down. That there were many of these not recorded by Ovid, and other mythologists, is very certain, for it is proved by the scraps of such lore which come to light in many authors and casual inscriptions. It requires no specially keen imagination, or active faculty of association, to observe that in this, and many other legends which I have collected and recorded, there are beyond question very remarkable relics of old faith and ancient tradition, drawn from a source which has been strangely neglected, which neglect will be to future and more enlightened antiquaries or historians a source of wonder and regret.