"In this fountain-basin is found a pretty little fish, which is always
there, and which no one can catch, because it always escapes with great
_lestezza_ or agility.
"And this is the queen of all the other fish, or else the Spirit of the
Fountain.
"This spirit, while on earth, was a beautiful girl who loved an official,
and he fell ill and was in the military hospital.
"The parents of the maid opposed her marriage with this official, though
he was so much in love with her that it and anxiety had made him ill.
Then the maid became a nun so that she might be near him in illness, and
nurse him in his last moments, which indeed came to pass, for he died,
nor did she long survive him.
"Then her mother, who had magic power (_essendo stata una fata_ {177}),
regretted having opposed her daughter's love and that of the young man,
since it had caused the death of both. And to amend this she so
enchanted them that by night both became _folletti_ or spirits haunting
the hospital, while by day the maid becomes a little fish living in the
fountain. But when seen by night she appears as a pretty little nun
(_una bella monachina_), and goes to the hospital to nurse the invalids,
for which she has, indeed, a passion. And if any one of them observes
her, he feels better, but in that instant she vanishes, and is in the
arms of her lover. But sometimes it happens that he becomes jealous of a
patient, and then he vexes the poor man in every way, twitching off his
covering, and playing him all kinds of spiteful tricks."
* * * * *
It is otherwise narrated, in a more consistent, and certainly more
traditionally truthful manner, that both the lovers are fish by day and
_folletti_ by night. This brings the legend to close resemblance with
the undying fish of Bowscale Tarn, recorded in Wordsworth's beautiful
song at the feast of Brougham Castle in the "Poems of the Imagination."
* * * * *
"'Tis worth noting," pens the observant Flaxius on this, "that in days of
yore fish, feminines, and fascination were considered so inseparable that
Dr. Johannes Christian Fromann wrote a chapter on this mystical trinity,
observing that music was, as an attractor, connected with them, as shown
by dolphins, syrens, Arions, and things of that sort. And he
quoted--yea, in the holy Latin tongue--many instances of fishers who
entice their finny prey by playing flutes:
"'Which thing I doubted till I saw that Doubt
Pursued, its refutation oft begets,
When in America I once found out
That shad were caught by means of castin' nets!'"
STORY OF THE PODESTA WHO WAS LONG ON HIS JOURNEY
A LEGEND OF THE DUOMO
"Were I ten times as tedious, I would find it in my heart to bestow
it all on you."--_Dogberry_.
This little tale is told by the Florentine Poggio, who was born in 1380
and died in 1459, yet lived--in his well-known _Facezie_. But as it ever
was and is a folk-story, independently of the great jester, I think it
worthy of a place in this collection.
"There was once a podesta sent from Rome to govern Florence, and truly he
was of that kind who to a farthing's worth of sense have ten ducats'
value in self-conceit; for if vanity could have kept a man warm, he never
would have had need to buy blankets. And this was most shown in his
belief that he was a great orator, though he was so intolerably stupid
and slow that his speeches were like the post-rider of Giordano, who in
good weather sometimes got as far as five miles a day.
"Now he was to be inducted into office in the Cathedral, in the presence
of the _priori_, or notables of the city of Florence, and so begun a
discourse in which he first of all described how great a man he had been
as senator in Rome, and what he had done, and what everybody else
connected with him had done, and all the details of his departure from
the Eternal City; and then depicted a banquet given to him at Sutro, and
so went on, telling everything about everybody, till, after several hours
of terribly tiresome discourse, he had got no farther than Siena.
"Now by this time, as Poggio words it, 'This excessive length of
wearisome narration had so exhausted his auditors that they began to fear
that the entire day would be spent on the road,' and at last, as the
shades of night began to fall, one who was present rose and said:
"'Monsignore, I beg you to remember that it is growing late, and you must
really get on a little faster in your journey, for if you are not in
Florence to-day, the gates will be shut, and unless you get here in time
you will not be allowed to enter, and thus you will miss being ordained,
and cannot enter on your office.'
"Which having heard, the man of many words promptly concluded his speech
by saying that he was really in Florence."
* * * * *
Southey, in "The Doctor," has narrated a number of instances of tedious
discourse, but none, I think, quite equal to this.
There is a shadow under every lamp, a devil's chapel close by every
church, and even of the venerable and holy Duomo of Florence there are
such tales as the following: