“Put out the light, and then—put out the light!”
“Ut inquit Hecateus in Genealogiis: Enim vero cùm duæ essent Vestæ, per antiquiorem Saturni matrem; terram; at per juniorem ignem purum ætheris significarunt.”—Mythologia Natalis Comitis, A.D. 1616.
Many centuries have passed since there was (worshipped) in Florence a goddess who was the great spirit of virtue and chastity, (yet) when a maid had gone astray she always devoted herself to worship the beautiful Avesta, as this deity was called, and the latter never failed in such case to get her devotee out of the difficulty. Her temple was that building which is now called the Baptistery of Saint John, and she was the goddess of light, as of candles, torches, and all that illuminates. And Avesta was, as I have said, known as the deity of virtue, albeit many of the people shrugged their shoulders when they heard this, being evidently strongly inclined to doubt, but they said nothing for fear of punishment.
For it was rumoured that Avesta had many lovers, and that in the rites of her religion there were secrets too dark to discover, and that as everything in her worship was involved in mystery and carried on occultly, it followed, of course, that it involved something wrong. And it was observed that once a month many women who worshipped her met in her temple by night, and that they were accompanied by their lovers, who with them adored the goddess in the form of a large lighted lamp. But that when this rite was at an end and the multitude had departed, there remained unnoted a number, by whom the doors were closed and the light extinguished, when a general orgy ensued, no one knowing who the others might be. [98a] And it was from this came the saying which is always heard when two lovers are seated together by a light and it goes out, that Avesta did it. [98b]
There was in Florence a young lord who loved a lady of great beauty. But she had a bitter rival, who to cross their love had recourse to sorcery or witchcraft, and so “bound” or cast on him a spell which weakened his very life, and made him impotent and wretched, that his very heart seemed to be turned to water.
And this spell the witch worked by taking a padlock and locking it, saying:
“Chiudo la catena,
Ma non chiudo la catena,
Chiudo il corpo e l’anima
Di questo bel signor ingrato,
Chi non ha voluto,
Corrispondermi in amore, [98c]
Ha preferito un’ altra a me,
E questa io l’odio
Come odio la signorina,
Pure catena che incateni
Tanti diavoli tieni!
Tengo incatenata questo signor
Fino a mio comando
Che nessuno la possa disciogliere
E incatenato possa stare,
Fino che non si decidera
Di sposarmi. . . .”“Now here I close the lock,
Yet ’tis not a lock which I close;
I shut the body and soul
Of this ungrateful lord,
Who would not meet my love,
But loves another instead,
Another whom I hate,
Whom I here lock and chain
With devil’s power again.
I hold this man fast bound
That none shall set him free
Until I so command,
And bound he shall remain
Till he will marry me.”
One day Virgil was passing the Piazza del Duomo, when he met with the young man who had thus been bound or bewitched, and the victim was so pale and evidently in terrible suffering, that the great poet and magician, who was ever pitying and kind, was moved to the heart, and said:
“Fair youth, what trouble have you, that you seem to be in such suffering?”
The young man replied that he, being in love unto life and death, had been bewitched by some malignant sorcery.
“That I can well see,” replied the sage, “and I am glad that it will be an easy thing for me to cure you. Go thou into a field which is just beyond Fiesole, in a place among the rocks. There thou wilt find a flat stone bearing a mark. Lift it, and beneath thou wilt find a padlock and chain. Take this golden key: it is enchanted, for with it thou canst open any lock in the world of door or chain. [99] Keep the lock, open it, and then go to the Temple of Vesta and return thanks with prayer, and wait for what will come.”