“’Tis an ancient tale that a boy for laughing at Ceres was turned
into a stone. For truly too much merriment hardens us all.”—_Comment
on L. M. Brusonii_ ‘_Facetiæ_.’
In ancient times there lived in Florence a young lord who was very
beautiful, and ever merry—and no wonder, because he was _Il Dio della
Allegria_—the God of Mirth—himself.
He was greatly beloved, not only by his friends, but by all the people,
because he was always so joyous, kind-hearted, and very charitable.
Every evening this spirit-lord went with his friends to the theatre, or
to his parties (_al circolo_), and the name by which he was known was
Eustachio. All awaited with impatience his arrival, for with it the
merriment began, and when he came there was a joyous shout of “Evviva il
Dio dell’ Allegria!”
It came to pass that in a theatre Eustachio met with a girl, a singer, of
such marvellous beauty and wit, that he fell, like one lost, in love with
her; which love being reciprocated, he took her to himself, and kept her
in a magnificent home, with many fine attendants, and all that heart
could desire. In those days every signore in Florence thus had an
_amante_, and there was great rivalry among them as to who should keep
his favourite in the best style—_con più di lusso_. And this lady so
beloved by Eustachio, was not only the most beautiful, but the most
magnificently entertained of any or all in the city.
Now, one evening there was a grand festival in a _palazzo_, where there
was dancing and gay conversation, Eustachio being as usual present, for
all his love for his lady did not keep him from the world, or making
mirth for all. And as they diverted themselves or sung to music, there
entered a group of young lords, among whom was Virgilio, the great poet.
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Then Eustachio rose and began to clap his hands and cry, “_Evviva_! Long
live the great poet!” and those who were at table ceased to eat, and
those who were dancing left the dance with their partners, and all in
welcome cried, “_Evviva il gran poeta_!”
Then Eustachio begged Virgilio to sing, and the poet did so, for there
was no one who would have refused anything to Eustachio, so winning were
his ways.
So Virgil made him the subject of his song, telling in pleasing verse how
free he was from care, ever laughing like sunshine, ever keeping himself
free from thought, which kills joy and brings sorrow.
And Eustachio, singing and laughing, said that it was because he was ever
among friends who banished thought, and so kept away melancholy.
Then Virgil, still softly singing, asked him whether, if he should lose
his lady-love, he would not be melancholy for a time, despite the
consolations of friends and relations.
Eustachio replied that he would indeed regret the loss, and it would make
him sad for a time, but not as a settled grief or incurable sorrow, for
that all things pass away, every night hath its morning, after every
death new life, when the sea has sunk to its lowest ebb then it rises,
and that he who knows this can never know trouble.
Virgil ended the dialogue of song by saying that he who believes he can
never be sad knows not what sorrow and trials are, that grief must come
some time or other to all, even to the God of Mirth himself, and offered
to make a wager of a banquet for all present, if he could not within two
weeks’ time cause Eustachio to know what grief, and a melancholy which
should seem incurable, was like.
Eustachio assented, and said he would add a thousand gold crowns to the
bet.
There was a statue named Peonia to whom Virgil had given life; and going
to her, who was now as other women, he said:
“I can give life to a statue, but how to change a human being to marble
is beyond my power; I pray thee, tell me how I may turn into an image,
such as thou wert, this beautiful girl whom Eustachio adores.”
And Peonia, smiling, replied: “Before thou didst come hither I knew thy
thought and thy purpose. Lo! here I have prepared a bouquet of flowers
of such intense magic perfume that it will make Eustachio love to
madness, as he never did before; but when his mistress inhales the
perfume she will become a statue.”
And as she bid he did, and placed the bouquet in the lady’s chamber, and
when she smelt at it she became a statue, and sat holding the flowers.
And Eustachio seeing her sitting there in the dim twilight, knew not the
truth, but also smelt of the perfume, and became more in love than man
can dream, but when he found that the lady was petrified he was well-nigh
mad with grief, nor could anyone console him. And this passed into an
iron-like melancholy, nor would he leave the room where the statue sat.
Now, the friends of all, though they well knew that Virgilio had done
this, still remembered that he had mighty and mysterious power, and then,
thinking over the wager, concluded that he had been in some manner in the
affair. So they went to him, praying that he would do something to keep
Eustachio from madness or death.
Then Virgilio, the great master, went to the room where Eustachio sat in
profound grief by the statue, and said, with a smile, “_Caro giovane_ (My
dear youth), I have won my wager, and expect to see thee this evening in
the hall at the banquet and dance, bringing the thousand crowns.”
“Dear Virgilio,” answered Eustachio, “go to my parents or friends, and
receive thy gold, and assemble them all to banquet or to dance; but do
not expect me, for from this room I never more will stir.”
Then Virgilio, gently removing the magic bouquet from the hand of the
statue, stepped to the window and threw it down into the street—when lo!
the lady flushed into life, and with a laugh asked them what they were
all doing there? And then Eustachio burst out laughing for joy, and they
danced in a circle round Virgilio. Eustachio paid down the thousand
crowns, which Virgil gave as a wedding present to the bride—for of course
there was a wedding, and a grander banquet than ever. But though he was
the God of Mirth himself, Eustachio never declared after this that he
would or could never mourn or think of grief.
* * * * *
What is remarkable in this tale is the confusion between the conception
of the hero as a spirit, or the God of Mirth, and his social condition as
a young Italian gentleman about town. It is this transition from the god
to the popular hero, a mere mortal, which forms the subject of Heine’s
“Gods in Exile.”
There is another Florentine legend, in which this god appears by the more
appropriate name _Momo_, evidently _Momus_, in which a young lord who had
never laughed in his life is made merry for ever by having presented to
him the image of a laughing goblin, which one of his peasants had dug up
in a ruin. Whenever he looks at it, he bursts into a roar of laughter,
which has the effect of changing his character very much for the better.
What is perhaps most significant in this tale is the name _Peonia_.
Pæonia in classic mythology was Minerva, as a healing goddess. As such,
alone, she bears the serpent. Esculapius is termed by Claudian the
_Pæonio_—dragon or snake. In reference to which I find the following in
the “Dizionario Mitologico”:
“_Peonia_, an additional name of Minerva, worshipped . . . as
guardian of health. Therefore she has for a tribute the serpent, as
emblem of the art of healing. _Peonico_ was a surname of Apollo.”
When medicine was synonymous with magic, Peonia-Minerva would naturally
appear as one familiar with occult arts. The changing to a statue and
being revived from a statue to life is a very evident symbol of raising
from death to life. Æsculapius, who was the male equivalent of Peonia,
revived corpses. As Minerva and other deities were familiar to the
people as statues, in which there was believed to be a peculiar spirit or
life, we can readily understand how any image of a goddess was supposed
to be at times revived.
Peonia in our story works her miracle by means of flowers. This, if we
are really dealing with an archaically old Italian tradition, is
marvellously significant. The _pœonia_, or peony, or _rose de Nôtre
Dame_, was believed in earliest Roman times to be _primus inter magnos_,
the very first and strongest of all floral amulets, or to possess the
greatest power in magic. This was due to its extreme redness, this
colour alone having great force to resist the evil eye and sorcery. The
most dreaded of all deities among the earliest Etrusco-Latin races was
Picus, who appeared as a woodpecker, to which bird he had been changed by
Circe. “Nam Picus, etiam rex, ab eadem Circe virga tactus, in volucrem
picum evolavit,” as Tritonius declares. When people dug for treasure
which was guarded by this dreaded bird, he slew them unless they bore as
a protecting amulet the root of the peony. But there is a mass of
testimony to prove that the _pæonia_, or peony, was magical. Many
classic writers, cited by Wolf in his work on amulets, 1692, declare its
root drives away phantasms and demons. It was held, according to the
same writer, that the same root protected ships from storms and houses
from lightning. It is true that this writer evidently confuses the peony
with the poppy, but the former was from earliest times strong in all
sorcery.
It is also curious that, in old tradition, Pygmalion the sculptor is
represented as indifferent to women. Venus punishes him by making him
fall in love with a statue. Eustachio, the Spirit of Mirth, declares
that the death of his love would not cause him deep grief and for this
Pæonia and Virgil change the lady into a marble image. It is the very
same story, but with the plot reversed.
Peonia, or peony, regarded as the poppy, since the two very similar
plants were beyond question often confused, had a deep significance as
lulling to sleep—a synonym for death, a reviving force—and it was also an
emblem of love and fertility (Pausanias, II., 10). Peonia lulls the lady
to sleep with flowers, that is, into a statue.
I do not regard it as more than _probable_, but I think it possible that
in this story we have one of the innumerable _novelle_ or minor myths of
the lesser gods, which circulated like fairy-tales among the Latin
people, of which only a small portion were ever written down. That there
were many of these not recorded by Ovid, and other mythologists, is very
certain, for it is proved by the scraps of such lore which come to light
in many authors and casual inscriptions. It requires no specially keen
imagination, or active faculty of association, to observe that in this,
and many other legends which I have collected and recorded, there are
beyond question very remarkable relics of old faith and ancient
tradition, drawn from a source which has been strangely neglected, which
neglect will be to future and more enlightened antiquaries or historians
a source of wonder and regret.
A certain Giovanni Maria Turrini, in a collection of odds and ends
entitled “Selva di Curiositá,” Bologna, 1674, declares that “the peony,
if patients be touched with it, cures them of epilepsy, which results
from the influence of the sun, to which this plant is subject, the same
effect resulting from coral.” Here we also have the restoring to life or
reason, as if from death; that is to say, from a fit or swoon. Truly,
the ancients did not know botany as we do, but there was for them far
more poetry and wonder in flowers.
Some time after all the foregoing was written I found—truly to my great
astonishment—that in a novel by Xavier Montepin there is a student named
Virgil, who has a mistress named Pivoine—the title of the book—which word
is in Latin _Pæonia_. This, according to the kind of criticism which is
now extensively current, would settle the whole business, and determine
“the undoubted original.” I believe it to be a mere chance coincidence
of names—strange, indeed, but nothing more. For, in the first place, I
am sure that my collector or her informants are about as likely to have
read the _Sohar_, or “Book of Light,” or Hegel’s “Cyclopædia,” as any
novel whatever. But the great part of what is curious in my narrative is
not that Virgil loves Pæonia, but that Pæonia-Minerva depresses people
to, or _raises them from_, _death by means of flowers_. Very clearly in
the Italian tale, as in others, Virgil is a physician, and Pæonia is his
counterpart, of all which there is no hint in the French novel.
So it once befell that in a very strange Italian tale of Galatea, the
Spirit of the White Pebble, there was a narrative agreeing in _names_
with one in a romance by Eugene Sue. But on carefully examining the
account of the Virgins of Sen, given by Pomponius Mela (Edition 1526, p.
34, for which purpose I expressly purchased the book), I found that the
legend, as known to Maddalena, and also to an old woman whom she did not
know, contained the main element as given by Mela, which is _not_ to be
found in the French story, namely, the transmigration of the soul or
metamorphosis into different forms. The Latin writer states that such
enchantresses are called Gallicenas. Now, there was at one time a great
infusion of Celtic blood into Northern Italy, and if it was in
correspondence with the Gauls, it _may_ possibly be that the story of Sen
and Galatea of the White Stone passed all round.
It may be observed, however, that there may linger among French peasants
some legend of Virgil and Pivoine, or Pæonia, which Montepin had picked
up, and should this be so, doubtless there is some folklorist who can
confirm it. This is far more likely than that my authority took the
names from a French novel.
The Spirit of Mirth in this story has really nothing in common with
Momus, who was, in fact, the God of Sneering, or captious, petty
criticism of the kind which objects to great and grand or beautiful
subjects, because of small defects. The Virgilian spirit is that of the
minor rural gods, or the daughters of the dawn, who were all smiling
sub-forms of the laughing Venus. These play the principal part in the
mythology of the Tuscan peasantry. This spirit differs from that of
Momus as an angel from a devil.
Psellus held that there was a soul in all statues.
That the God of Mirth, or Laughter, is in this tale also a gay young
cavalier in Florentine society is paralleled or outdone by Chaucer in the
“Manciple’s Tale,” in which Apollo is described as follows:
“Whan Phebus dwelled here in erth adoun,
As oldé bookes maken mentioun,
He was the mosté lusty bacheler
Of all this world, and eke the best archer. . . .
Thereto he was the semelieste man
That is or was sithen the world began.”
That is, this “flour of bachelerie as well in fredom as in chivalrie” was
simply human while here below, having “a wif which that he loved more
than his lif.” Chaucer wrote this evidently with conscious humour of the
naïve paradox by which those of his age could thus confuse gods and
common mortals, even as a Red Indian vaguely confuses the great beaver or
wolf with a human being. It is a curious reflection that, at the present
day in Italy, there are believers in the old gods who regard the latter
in the same way, as half divine and half like other folk.