“As the lily dies away
In the garden, in the plain,
Then as beautiful and gay
In the summer comes again;
So may life, when love is o’er,
In a child appear once more.”
The following strange legend, which was taken down by Maddalena from some
authority to me unknown, near Arezzo, is so imperfectly told in the
original, and is, moreover, so evidently repieced and botched by an
ignorant narrator, that I at first rejected it altogether; but finding on
consideration that it had some curious relations with other tales, I
determined to give it for what it may be worth.
* * * * *
Once the Emperor of Rome was in his palace very melancholy, nor could he
rally (_ralegrarla_), do what he might. Then he went forth into the
groves to hear the birds sing, for this generally cheered him, but now it
was of no avail.
Then he sent a courier to Florence, and bade him call Virgil with all
haste.
Virgil followed the messenger at full speed.
“What wilt thou of me?” asked the sorcerer of the Emperor.
“I wish to be relieved from the melancholy which oppresses me. I want
joy.”
“Do like me, and thou wilt always have a peaceful mind:
“‘I work no evil to any man;
I ever do what good I can.
He who acts thus has ever the power
To turn to peace the darkest hour!’”
“Nor do I recall that I ever did anything to regret,” replied the
Emperor.
“Well, then, come with me, for I think that a little journey will be the
best means of distracting your mind and relieving you from melancholy.”
“Very well,” replied the Emperor. “Lead where you will; anything for a
change.”
“We will take a look at all the small districts of Tuscany,” answered
Virgil.
“Going from the Florentino,
Through Valdarno to Casentino;
Where’er we see the olives bloom,
And smell the lily’s rich perfume,
And mountains rise and rivulets flow,
Thither, my lord, we two will go.”
To which the Emperor replied:
“Where’er you will, all things to see,
High or low—’tis all one to me,
If I can only happy be.”
So they travelled on through many places, but the Emperor was ever dull
and sad; but when in Cortona he said that he felt a little better, and
went forth with Virgil to look about the town.
[And it was unto this place and to a certain end that Virgil led his
lord.]
Passing along a street, they saw at a window a girl of extraordinary
beauty, who was knitting. . . . {187a}
The girl instead of being angered, laughed, showing two rows of beautiful
teeth, and said:
“Thou mayst become gold, and the skein a twist of gold.”
The girl was utterly surprised and confused at this, and knew not whether
to accept or refuse (the gift offered).
The Emperor said to Virgil:
“Just see how beautiful she is. I would like to win her love, and make
her mine.”
“Always the same song,” replied Virgil. “You never so much as say, ‘I
wish she were my daughter.’”
“She can never be my daughter,” answered the Emperor; “but as she is as
poor as she is beautiful, she may very easily become my love. Honour is
of no value to a poor person.”
“Nay,” replied Virgil, “when the poor know its value, it is worth as much
to them as gold to you who are wealthy. {187b} And it is from your
neglecting this that you have so long suffered, you knew not why [but an
evil deed will burn, though you see no light and know not what it is].
For thus didst thou once betray a poor maid, and then cast her away
without a further thought, not even bestowing aught upon her. And thou
hadst a daughter, and her mother now lies ill and is well nigh to death.
And it is this which afflicted thee [for every deed sends its light or
shadow at some time unto the doer]. And now, if thou dost not repair
this wrong, thou wilt never more know peace, and shalt ever sit in the
chair of penitence.”
“And where is my daughter and her mother?” asked the Emperor.
“That girl is the daughter, and if you would see her mother, follow me,”
replied Virgil.
When they entered the room where the dying woman lay, the Emperor
recognised in her one whom he had loved.
“Truly,” he said, “she was the most beautiful to me of all.”
And he embraced and kissed her; she was of marvellous beauty; she asked
him if he recognised their daughter.
“I recognise and acknowledge her,” he replied. “Wilt thou live?”
“No,” she replied; “for I have lived to the end, and return to life. [I
am a fairy (_fata_) who came to earth to teach thee that fortune and
power are given to the great not to oppress the weak and poor, but to
benefit.”]
Saying this she died, and there remained a great bouquet of flowers.
The Emperor took his daughter to the palace, where she passed for his
niece, and with her the flowers in which he ever beheld his old fairy
love, and thus he lived happy and contented.
* * * * *
To supply a very important omission in this legend, I would add that the
bouquet was certainly of lilies, as occurs in other legends, and the real
meaning of the whole is a very significant illustration of the history
and meaning of the flower. Old writers and mythic symbolism, as
Friedrich and many more have shown, believed that Nature taught, not
vaguely and metaphorically, but directly, many moral lessons, and that of
the lily was purity and truth. By comparing this with the other stories
relating to this flower which I have given, it will hardly be denied that
my conjectural emendations formed part of the original, which the
narrator had not remembered or understood.
There is something beautifully poetical in the fancy that spirits,
_fata_, assume human form, that they by their influence on great men,
princes or kaisars, may change their lives, and teach them lessons by
means of love or flowers. This makes of the tale an allegory. It was in
this light that Dante saw all the poems of Virgil, as appears by passages
in the “Convito,” in which curious book (p. 36, ed. 1490) there is a
passage declaring that the world is round and hath a North and South
Pole, in the former of which there is a city named Maria, and on the
other one called Lucia, and that Rome is 2,600 miles from the one, “more
or less,” and 7,500 miles from the other.
“And thus do men, each in his different way,
From fancies unto wilder fancies stray.”
Or as the same great poet expresses it in the same curious book: “Man is
like unto a weary pilgrim upon a road which he hath never before
travelled, who every time that he sees from afar a house, deems that it
is the lodging which he seeks, and finding his mistake, believes it is
the next, and so he erreth on from place to place until he finds the
tavern which he seeks. And ’tis the same, be it with boys seeking apples
or birds, or their elders taking fancies to garments, or a horse, or a
woman, or wealth, ever wanting something else or more and so ever on.”
The lily in Italian tales is the flower of happy, saintly deaths; it
fills the beds of the departing, it sprouts from the graves of the holy
and the good. In one legend it is the white flower of the departing soul
which changes into a white bird. But in this story it has a doubly
significant meaning, as the crest of Florence and as conveying a
significant meaning to its ruler.
The “Convito” of Dante is not nearly so well known as the “Commedia,” but
it deserves study. The only copy which I have ever read is the editio
princeps of 1490, which I bought of an itinerant street-vendor for 4
soldi, or twopence.