“‘Dacche il pesce ha stato mangiato,
Io non sono più confinato.’”
And saying this, there went forth from the image a spirit-form, which vanished.
Then Luigi wedded the young lady of the castle, and Virgilio, who was present, promised the pair a happy life. And he said:
“Thou wilt be, O Luigi, the beginner of a family or race which, like the Holy Church, will have been founded on a stone, and while the Church lasts thy name shall endure.”
The concluding paragraph refers to pietra, a stone, and to the text, well known to the most ignorant Catholic, “Petrus es et super hanc petram edificabo ecclesiam meam,” whence it has been said that the Roman Church was founded on a pun, to which the reply might be, “And what if it was?” since there was no suspicion in early times that the pun, as a poetical form, might not be seriously employed in illustration. Dr. Johnson made the silly assertion that a pun upon a proper name is the lowest kind of wit, in which saying there is—as in many of his axioms—more sound than sense; nor is it altogether reverent or respectful, when we reflect that both Christ and Cicero used the despised figure of speech. In one of the tales in this collection the Emperor of Rome speaks of a wheat-bran (tisane) which had been ordered as “pigs’ broth,” which was exactly the term by which Cicero alluded to the Verrine law, which also bears that meaning. As his adversary was a Jew, and the query was, “What has a Hebrew to do with pig-broth, or pork-soup?”—i.e., the law of Verres—the joke, with all due deference to the law-giver Samuel, may be fairly called a very good one. [106]
VIRGILIO AND THE BRONZE HORSE.
“The horse of brass.”—Milton.
“But evermore their moste wonder was
About this horsé, since it was of brass.
It was of faerie as the peple seemed,
Diversè folk diversely han deemed.”Chaucer: The Squiere’s Tale.
One day Virgilio went to visit the Emperor, and not finding him in his usual good temper, asked what was the matter, adding that he hoped it would be in his power to do something to relieve him.
Then the Emperor complained that what troubled him was that all his horses seemed to be ill or bewitched, behaving like wild beasts, or as if evil spirits were in them, and that which grieved him most was that his favourite white horse was most afflicted of all.
“Do not vex yourself for such a thing,” replied Virgil. “I will cure your horses and all the others in the city.”