Then a butcher struck him heavily; he gave him a death-wound with an axe, and Nerone, dying, said:
“If thou hast no shame for having killed an Emperor, thou shouldst at least blush at having put to death the best actor in Rome!”
Then the ground opened, and there came forth the flame and thunder of hell, with many devils who howled. . . .
And so did Nero die, who was the most infamous king [90] who ever lived in this world since it was a world.
Though there are so many authentic traits of the Emperor Nero in this tradition, the reader is not to infer from them that she who wrote it has had access to a copy of Suetonius. There is a “halfpenny dreadful,” or sou shocker, entitled the “Life of Nero”—Vita di Nerone—published by Adriano Salani, the Catnach of Florence, Via Militare, No. 24 (No. 107 on his catalogue), to say nothing of other halfpenny classical works, such as the “Story of the Proud Emperor,” “The Empress Flavia,” and the “Tale of Pyramus and Thisbe,” which, as they are to be found on many open-air stands, may account for a great deal of such learning in the popular mind. One may meet daily in Italy with marvellous proof in many forms of what a strange, curious, confused mass of old Latin lore still lingers among the people, and the marvellous contrast which it presents to what the common folk read and reflect over in other lands. But Nero would be most likely to be remembered, because he is frequently mentioned or described in popular Lives of the Saints as a great maker of martyrs, and caster of them unto lions.
This does not belong to the cycle of Virgilian tales, but it was sent to me as one from Siena. To my collector it was all one, so that it referred to a magician, and had the idea occurred to the writer, the name of Virgilio would have been substituted for that of Seneca. Doubtless in their time, since they began life in India, or Egypt, or Arabia, these legends have borne many names, and been as garments to the memory of many sages—even as Buddha in his Jatakas was the first of a line which has ended in the heroes of European nurseries.
The halfpenny, or soldo, or sou ballad of Nero, to which I have referred, is too curious as illustrating the remarkable knowledge of classical antiquity still current among the Italian people, to be lightly passed by. Its title-page is as follows:
“Storia di Nerone, dove si narrano, le Stragi, i Delitti, le Persecuzioni e gli Incendi commessi da questo infame Tiranno in Roma”—“History of Nero; in which is told the Murders and Crimes committed by this Infamous Tyrant in Rome.”
This poem and others of the same stamp are quite as barbarously classic-mediæval or Romanesque as anything in any of these stories of Virgilio, and if I cite it, it is to give a clear idea of the remarkable degree to which strange traditions, and very ancient legends or “learning,” have lingered among the people. I really cannot understand why this marvellous survival of old Latin romance, and this spirit of the Dark Ages among the people, attracts so little attention among literary people, and especially Italians. For it certainly indicates to any thinking mind the survival of a great deal of classic tradition which has never been recorded.