THE BALD VENUS--INEZ DE CASTRO--THE UNITY OF LOVE
Within the temple of my purer mind
One imaged form shall ever live enshrined,
And hear the vows, to first affection due,
Still breathed: for love that ceases ne'er was true.
--Leyden's Scenes of Infancy.
An interval of a week was interposed between the comedy and the intended
ball. Mr. Falconer having no fancy for balls, and disturbed beyond
endurance by the interdict which Miss Gryll had laid on him against
speaking, for four times seven days, on the subject nearest his
heart, having discharged with becoming self-command his share in the
Aristophanic comedy, determined to pass his remaining days of probation
in the Tower, where he found, in the attentions of the seven sisters,
not a perfect Nepenthe, but the only possible antidote to intense
vexation of spirit. It is true, his two Hebes, pouring out his Madeira,
approximated as nearly as anything could do to Helen's administration of
the true Nepenthe. He might have sung of Madeira, as Redi's Bacchus sang
of one of his favourite wines:--
Egli è il vero oro potabile,
Che mandar suole in esilio
Ogni male inrimediabile:
Egli è d'Elena il Nepente,
Che fa stare il mondo allegro,
Dai pensieri
Foschi e neri
Sempre sciolto, e sempre esente.{1}
1 Redi: Bacco in Toscana.
Matters went on quietly at the Grange. One evening, Mr. Gryll said
quietly to the Reverend Doctor Opimian--
'I have heard you, doctor, more than once, very eulogistic of hair
as indispensable to beauty. What say you to the bald Venus of the
Romans--_Venus Calva_?'
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Why, sir, if it were a question whether
the Romans had any such deity, I would unhesitatingly maintain the
_negatur_. Where do you find her?
_Mr. Gryll._ In the first place, I find her in several dictionaries.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ A dictionary is nothing without an authority.
You have no authority but that of one or two very late writers, and
two or three old grammarians, who had found the word and guessed at its
meaning. You do not find her in any genuine classic. A bald Venus! It is
as manifest a contradiction in terms as hot ice, or black snow.
_Lord Curryfin._ Yet I have certainly read, though I cannot at this
moment say where, that there was in Rome a temple to _Venus Calva_, and
that it was so dedicated in consequence of one of two circumstances: the
first being that through some divine anger the hair of the Roman women
fell off, and that Ancus Martius set up a bald statue of his wife, which
served as an expiation, for all the women recovered their hair, and the
worship of the Bald Venus was instituted; the other being, that when
Rome was taken by the Gauls, and when they had occupied the city, and
were besieging the Capitol, the besieged having no materials to make
bowstrings, the women cut off their hair for the purpose, and after the
war a statue of the Bald Venus was raised in honour of the women.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I have seen the last story transferred to the
time of the younger Maximin.{1} But when two or three explanations, of
which only one can possibly be true, are given of any real or supposed
fact, we may safely conclude that all are false. These are ridiculous
myths, founded on the misunderstanding of an obsolete word. Some hold
that _Calva_, as applied to Venus, signifies pure; but I hold with
others that it signifies alluring, with a sense of deceit. You will find
the cognate verbs, calvo and calvor, active,{2}
1 Julius Capitolinus: Max. Jun. c. 7.
2 Est et Venus Calva ob hanc causam, quod cum Galli
Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta
facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron,
imitatae earn, exsecuerune, unde facta tormenta; et post
bellum statua Veneri hoc nomine collocata est: licet alii
Calvam Venerem quasi puram tradant: alii Calvam, quod corda
calviat, id est, fallat atque éludât. Quidam dicunt,
porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Ancum regem
suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod constitit piaculo;
nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde institutum
ut Calva Venus coleretur.
--Servius ad Aen. i.
passive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sallust. Nobody
pretends that the Greeks had a bald Venus. The _Venus Calva_ of the
Romans was the _Aphrodite Dolie_ of the Greeks.{3} Beauty cannot
co-exist with baldness; but it may and does co-exist with deceit.
Homer makes deceitful allurement an essential element in the girdle of
Venus.{4} Sappho addresses her as craft-weaving Venus.{5} Why should I
multiply examples, when poetry so abounds with complaints of deceitful
love that I will be bound every one of this company could, without a
moment's hesitation, find a quotation in point?--Miss Gryll, to begin
with.
1 Contra ille _calvi_ ratus.--Sallust: Hist. iii.
Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured.
2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor manus calvitur.
--Plautus in Casina.
For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly deceives my hands.
3 (Greek passage)
4 (Greek passage)
5 (Greek passage)
_Miss Gryll._ Oh, doctor, with every one who has a memory for poetry,
it must be _l'embarras de richesses_. We could occupy the time till
midnight in going round and round on the subject. We should soon come to
an end with instances of truth and constancy.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Not so soon, perhaps. If we were to go on
accumulating examples, I think I could find you a Penelope for a Helen,
a Fiordiligi for an Angelica, an Imogene for a Calista, a Sacripant for
a Rinaldo, a Romeo for an Angelo, to nearly the end of the chapter.
I will not say quite, for I am afraid at the end of the catalogue the
numbers of the unfaithful would predominate.
_Miss Ilex._ Do you think, doctor, you would find many examples of love
that is one, and once for all; love never transferred from its first
object to a second?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Plato holds that such is the essence of love,
and poetry and romance present it in many instances.
_Miss Ilex._ And the contrary in many more.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ If we look, indeed, into the realities of life,
as they offer themselves to us in our own experience, in history, in
biography, we shall find few instances of constancy to first love; but
it would be possible to compile a volume of illustrious examples of love
which, though it may have previously ranged, is at last fixed in single,
unchanging constancy. Even Inez de Castro was only the second love of
Don Pedro of Portugal; yet what an instance is there of love enduring in
the innermost heart, as if it had been engraved on marble.
_Miss Gryll._ What is that story, doctor? I know it but imperfectly.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Inez de Castro was the daughter, singularly
beautiful and accomplished, of a Castilian nobleman, attached to the
court of Alphonso the Fourth of Portugal. When very young, she became
the favourite and devoted friend of Constance, the wife of the young
Prince Don Pedro. The princess died early, and the grief of Inez touched
the heart of Pedro, who found no consolation but in her society. Thence
grew love, which resulted in secret marriage. Pedro and Inez lived in
seclusion at Coimbra, perfectly happy in each other, and in two children
who were born to them, till three of Alphonso's courtiers, moved by I
know not what demon of mischief--for I never could discover an adequate
motive--induced the king to attempt the dissolution of the marriage, and
failing in this, to authorise them to murder Inez during a brief absence
of her husband. Pedro raised a rebellion, and desolated the estates of
the assassins, who escaped, one into France, and two into Castile. Pedro
laid down his arms on the entreaty of his mother, but would never
again see his father, and lived with his two children in the strictest
retirement in the scene of his ruined happiness. When Alphonso died,
Pedro determined not to assume the crown till he had punished the
assassins of his wife. The one who had taken refuge in France was dead;
the others were given up by the King of Castile. They were put to death,
their bodies were burned, and their ashes were scattered to the winds.
He then proceeded to the ceremony of his coronation. The mortal form of
Inez, veiled and in royal robes, was enthroned by his side: he placed
the queenly crown on her head, and commanded all present to do her
homage. He raised in a monastery, side by side, two tombs of white
marble, one for her, one for himself. He visited the spot daily, and
remained inconsolable till he rejoined her in death. This is the true
history, which has been sadly perverted by fiction.
_Miss Ilex._ There is, indeed, something grand in that long-enduring
constancy: something terribly impressive in that veiled spectral
image of robed and crowned majesty. You have given this, doctor, as an
instance that the first love is not necessarily the strongest, and this,
no doubt, is frequently true. Even Romeo had loved Rosalind before he
saw Juliet. But love which can be so superseded is scarcely love. It
is acquiescence in a semblance: acquiescence, which may pass for love
through the entire space of life, if the latent sympathy should never
meet its perfect counterpart.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Which it very seldom does; but acquiescence in
the semblance is rarely enduring, and hence there are few examples of
lifelong constancy. But I hold with Plato that true love is single,
indivisible, unalterable.
_Miss Ilex._ In this sense, then, true love is first love; for the
love which endures to the end of life, though it may be the second in
semblance, is the first in reality.
The next morning Lord Curryfin said to Miss Niphet. 'You took no
part in the conversation of last evening. You gave no opinion on the
singleness and permanence of love.'
_Miss Niphet._ I mistrust the experience of others, and I have none of
my own.
_Lord Curryfin._ Your experience, when it comes, cannot but confirm the
theory. The love which once dwells on you can never turn to another.
_Miss Niphet._. I do not know that I ought to wish to inspire such an
attachment.
_Lord Curryfin._ Because you could not respond to it?
_Miss Niphet._. On the contrary; because I think it possible I might
respond to it too well.
She paused a moment, and then, afraid of trusting herself to carry on
the dialogue, she said: 'Come into the hall, and play at battledore and
shuttlecock.'
He obeyed the order: but in the exercise her every movement developed
some new grace, that maintained at its highest degree the intensity of
his passionate admiration.
[Illustration: Her every movement developed some new grace 275-235]