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Puis tournant au Bourreau sa face glorieuse: Arme quand tu voudras ta main injurieuse, Frappe le coup mortel, et d'un bras furieux Fay tomber le chef bas et voler l'âme aux cieux. Il court oyant ces mots se saisir de la hache; Un, deux, trois, quatre coups sur son col il delasche; Car le fer aceré moins cruel que son bras Vouloit d'un si beau corps differer le trespas. Le tronc tombe à la fin, et sa mourante face Par trois ou quatre fois bondit dessus la place."[190]
The lamentations of the Chorus close the pathetic scene. This is not yet tragedy; but it is not far from being splendid in parts. It is the work, if not of a dramatist, at least of an eloquent rhetorician combined with a lyric poet of high gifts. And when it is remembered that the play was written before his twenty-fifth year, by the man who afterwards showed his keen power of analysis and his psychological insight in his treatise on political economy, it is justifiable to regret that the circumstances of his adventurous life induced him to abandon the literary career which had opened so auspiciously for him.
LORETTO
The original Loretto—or, as it should more correctly be spelt, Loreto—is an Italian town situated in the province of Ancona, and only a few miles from the shores of the Adriatic. Its four to five thousand inhabitants consist mainly of dealers in objects of piety and in beggars, and its only importance lies in the fame of its shrine, to which many thousands of pilgrims resort yearly.
The cult of Our Lady of Loreto is based on one of the most marvellous, not to say the most daring, of medieval legends. According to the traditional account, St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, had caused a church to be built at Nazareth, over the cottage which the Blessed Virgin had once inhabited. That church the Saracens overthrew. They were preparing to destroy the Santa Casa itself when, on the night of May 12, 1291, angels, anticipating and surpassing the feats of modern engineering, transported it into Dalmatia. For various reasons it was again removed three successive times from one locality to another, until it finally took its stand on the high road between Recanati and the sea. There is a divergence of opinions as to the origin of the name by which the magnificent shrine which shelters the Santa Casa has become known through the whole world. Some authorities attribute it to the fact that the Holy House was deposited in a field belonging to a widow called Lauretta, whilst others connect it with the existence of a laurel grove on the site chosen by the carrier angels. In addition to the cottage, and within it, there is a statue of the Madonna. It is attributed to St. Luke, whom medieval legends commonly regarded as portraitist-in-ordinary to the Virgin Mary. Another relic consists of the dish out of which the Virgin ate. The popularity which the shrine of Loreto acquired through the ages may be estimated from the fact that towards the end of the eighteenth century its wealth was valued at more than a million sterling. In 1797 Pius VI was obliged to draw on its treasury in order to fulfil the conditions imposed on him by the Treaty of Tolentino. War having again broken out, the French occupied Loreto and took possession of the miraculous statue, which was relegated to a shelf beneath that occupied by a mummy in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothéque Nationale. Napoleon restored it to the Pope in 1802.
The fame acquired by the Italian Loreto led to the establishment, in other countries, of similar shrines—branch establishments for the granting of indulgences and the performance of miracles. Of such Scotland possessed at least two. One of them, which does not seem to have acquired more than a local reputation, was in Perth. The other stood "beyond the eastern gate of Musselburgh and on the margin of the links". The date and circumstances of its foundation are set forth by the Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents, which, amongst the entries for 1533, has the following:—"In this mene tyme thair came ane heremeit, callit Thomas Douchtie, in Scotland, quha haid bein lang capitane (?captive) before the Turk, as was allegit, and brocht ane ymage of our Lady with him, and foundit the Chappel of Laureit, besyid Musselburgh". In addition to this evidence there is a charter of James V, dated July 29, 1534, and confirming the grant by the Bailies, of a "petra" of land in the territory of Musselburgh, to Thomas Duthy, of the Order of St. Paul, first hermit of Mount Sinai, for the erection of a chapel in honour of Almighty God and of Blessed Mary of Laureto.[191]