[1] ‘You know what a “selvaggio” is, I suppose?’ asked the narrator. ‘Yes; a wild man,’ I answered, thinking of the German myths. ‘No, they weren’t altogether men, they were those creatures there used to be in old times, half men with legs like goats, but they walked on two legs, and had heads and arms like men.’ After this description, I thought I might take the license of adopting the title for a word incidentally used by the narrator in telling the story. The shepherds and goatherds about Rome with their goatskin leggings covering leg and thigh, readily suggest to the eye how the idea of a satyr may have first arisen. [↑]
[2] ‘Appassionata,’ ‘of a broken heart.’ [↑]
[3] ‘Ferraiuola,’ the light cloak with a shoulderpiece which priests wear out of doors in Rome in summer. It was formerly worn by others besides priests. [↑]
[4] Sgramfia, or granfa or gramfia, is a claw of a beast, or of a bird of prey, most often used for the latter. I hardly know how this came to be ascribed to a satyr, unless she meant simply that his nails were rather strongly developed. [↑]
2
THE SATYRS.
They say there was a queen whose husband was dead, and she had one only son. Imagine how devoted she was to him, her only child, soon to be the king of vast dominions.
One day a lady, unknown to her, came and asked if she might put a horse of hers in her stable.