In the early world of Greece and Italy, the beliefs relating to
Fate had a vital and penetrative force which belonged only to them.
"Nothing," says Sophocles, "is so terrible to man as Fate." It was the
shadow cast down the broad sunlight of the roofless Hellenic life. All
Greece, its gods and men, bowed at that word which Victor Hugo saw,
or imagined that he saw, graven on a pillar of Notre Dame: [Greek:
Ananke]. Necessity alone of the supernatural powers was not made by
man in his own image. It had no sacred grove, for in the whole world
there was no place where to escape from it, no peculiar sect of
votaries, for all were bound equally to obey; it could not be bought
off with riches nor withstood by valour; no man worshipped it, many
groaned under its dispensation; but by all it was vaguely felt to be
the instrument of a pure justice. If they did not, with Herder, call
Fate's law "Eternal Truth," yet their idea of necessity carried these
men nearer than did any other of their speculative guesses to the idea
of a morally-governed universe.
The belief in one Fate had its train of accessorial beliefs. The
Parcae and the Erinnyes figured as dark angels of Destiny. Then, in
response to the double needs of superstition and materialism, the
impersonal Fate itself took the form of the Greek Tyche, and of that
Fortuna, who, in Rome alone, had no less than eight temples. There
were some indeed who saw in Fortune nothing else than the old _dira
necessitas_; but to the popular mind, she was nearer to chance than to
necessity; she dealt out the favourable accident which goes further
to secure success than do the subtlest combinations of men. The Romans
did not only demand of a military leader that he should have talent,
foresight, energy; they asked, was he _felix_--happy, fortunate? Since
human life was seen to be, on the whole, but a sorry business,
and since it was also seen that the prosperous were not always the
meritorious, the inference followed that Fortune was capricious,
changeable, and, if not immoral, at least unmoral. With this character
she came down to the Middle Ages, having contrived to outlive the
whole Roman pantheon.
So Dante found her, and inquired of his guide who and what she might
really be?
Maestro, dissi lui, or mi di' anche:
Questa Fortuna di che tu mi tocche,
Che e, che i ben del mondo ha si tra branche?
Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills that lay in his
path: he left them standing, only seeking a proper reason for their
being there. Therefore he did not answer himself in the words of the
Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in Dio;" but, on the
contrary, tried to prove that the two beliefs might be perfectly
reconciled. "He whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply)
"fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling force in such
wise that each part shines upon each, distributing equally the
light. Also to worldly splendours he ordained a general minister, and
captain, who should timely change the tide of vain prosperity from
race to race and from blood to blood. Why these prevail, and those
languish, according to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in the
grass; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; she provides,
judges, and pursues her governance, as do theirs the other gods. Her
permutations have no truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift
in coming who would have his turn. This is she who is upbraided
even by those who should praise her, giving her blame wrongfully and
ill-repute; but she continues blessed, and hearkens not; glad among
the other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and being
blessed, rejoices."
The peasants, the _pagani_ of Italy, did not give their name for
nothing to the entire system of antiquity. They were its last, its
most faithful adherents, and to this day their inmost being is
watered from the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world
thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots and pans. In the
isolated Tuscan farm you will be lighted to your bed by a woman
carrying an oil lamp identical in form with those buried in Etruscan
tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give you to drink
out of a jar not to be distinguished from the amphorae of Pompeii. A
stranger hunting in the campagna may often hear himself addressed with
the "Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian people are the most
interesting of classical remains. Even their religion has helped
to perpetuate practices older than Italy. How is it possible, for
instance, to see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field,
with its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before the mild
countenance of some local saint, without remembering what the chorus
says to Admetus: "Deem not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of
the vulgar departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration,
a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one climbs the slanting
pathway, these will be the words he utters: 'This was she who erewhile
laid down her life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore.
Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the words that will
be spoken."
Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the dead--nay, even the
cult of the Virgin, which crept so mysteriously into the exercise
of Christian worship--had birth, not in the councils of priests and
schoolmen, but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people of Italy
of the new faith upon an older stock?
With this persistency of thought, observable in outward trifles, as in
the deepest yearnings of the soul, it would be strange if the Italian
mind had ceased to occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The
folk-lore of the country will show the mould into which the ancient
speculations have been cast, and in how far these have undergone
change, whether in the sense of assimilating new theories or in that
of reverting to a still earlier order of ideas.
They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman who had set his heart
on finding _one who was just_ to be sponsor to his new-born child. He
took the babe in his arms and went forth into the public ways to seek
_El Giusto_. He walked and walked and met a man (who was our Lord) and
to him he said, "I have got this son to christen, but I do not wish
to give him to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him the Lord
replied, "But I do not know if I am just." Then the husbandman went
a little further and met a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he
said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to give him to one
who is just. Are you just?" "I know not," said the Madonna; "but go a
little further and you will meet one who is just." After that, he went
a little further, and met another woman who was Death. "I have been
sent to you," he said, "for they say you are just. I have a child to
christen, and I do not wish to give him except to one who is just.
Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am just," said Death; "but let us
christen the babe and afterwards I will show you if I am just." So
the boy was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman into a
long, long room where there were an immense number of lighted lamps.
"Gossip," said the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, "what
is the meaning of all these lights?" Said Death: "These are the lights
of all the souls that are in the world. Would you like just to see,
Gossip? That is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman,
who saw that his lamp was going out, said, "And when there is no more
oil, Gossip?" "Then," replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I
am Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, "do let me pour a
little of the oil out of my son's lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip,"
said Death, "I don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you
wished to meet, and a just one you have found. And now, go you to your
house and put your affairs in order, for I am waiting for you."[1]
In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is still more
oriental than antique.
... God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives
That lamp due measure of oil....
The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven on each of whose
leaves is the name of a human being, and whenever one of these leaves
withers and falls, the man whose name it bears dies with it. The
conception of human life as of something bound up and incorporated
with an object seemingly foreign, lies at the very root of elementary
beliefs. In an Indian tale the life of a boy resides in a gold
necklace which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's life is
contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the woman must perish.
In a third a prince plants a tree before he goes on a journey, saying
as he does so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and
fresh, then know that it is well with me. When you see the tree fade
in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case. When you see the
whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone."
According to a legend of wide extension--it is known from Esthonia to
the Pyrenees--all men were once aware of the hour of their death. But
one day Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of straw. "That
hedge will last but for a short while," He said; to which the man
answered, "It will be good for as long as I live; that it should last
longer, matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no man should
thereafter know when he should die.
The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea that from the
moment of a man's birth his future lot is decided, whether for good
or evil hap, and that he has but little power of altering or modifying
the irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky days to be born
on; lucky and unlucky circumstances attendant on an entry into the
world, which affect all stages of the subsequent career. He who is
born on the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It is very
unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. Anciently the moon was
taken as symbol both of Fortune, and of Hecate, goddess of Magic.
The Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, send me good
fortune; thou shining, and I content, lustrous thou, I fortunate."
Also at Cagliari, in Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me
luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give it soon, so I may buy
sweetmeats." The changing phases of the moon doubtless contributed to
its identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," runs the
Basque proverb, "change like the moon." But yet more, its influence
over terrestrial phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer
and by him readily magnified to any extent, served to connect it with
whatever occult, unaccountable power was uppermost in people's minds.
In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds
of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will
bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will
quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it
is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the
looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the
graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight;
the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary
vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public lotteries are of
almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without
thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse
calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope
of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall
it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When
Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and
in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of
the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two
million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of
mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even
in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable
Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was
played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among
the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books,
and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto."
The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is strongest in those
countries where there is the least control over Nature. The relations
between man and Nature affect not only the social life, but also the
theology and politics of whole races of men. A learned Armenian who
lives at Venice, came to London for a week in June to see some English
friends. It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the white
cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I asked myself" (he wrote,
describing his experiences) "how it was possible that a great nation
should exist behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him that
in the continual but, in the long run, victorious struggle with an
ungenial climate might lie the secret of the development of that great
nation. Different are the lands where the soil yields its increase
almost without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole is
swallowed up by flood or earthquake.
The songs of luck, or rather of ill-luck, nearly all come from the
Calabrias. There are hundreds of variations upon the monotonous
theme of predestined misery. "In my mother's womb I began to have no
fortune; my swaddling clothes were woven of melancholy; when we
went to church, the woman who carried me died upon the way, and the
godfather who held me at the font said, 'Misfortunate art thou born,
my daughter!'" Here is another: "Hapless was I born, and with a
darkened moon; never did a fair day dawn for me. Habited in weeds, and
attended by cruel fortune, I sail upon a sea of grief and trouble." Or
this: "Wretched am I, for against me conspired heaven and fortune and
destiny; and the four elements decreed that never should I prosper:
earth would engulf me; air took away my breath; water flowed with my
tears; fire burnt this poor heart." Again: "I was created under an
ill-star; never had I an hour's content. By my friends I saw myself
forsaken, and chased away by my mistress. The heavens moved against
me, the stars, the planets, and fortune; if there is no better lot
for me, open thou earth and give me sepulchre!" The luckless wretch
imagines that the sea, even where it was deepest, dried up at his
birth; and the spring dried up for that year, and all the flowers that
were in the world dried up; and the birds went singing: "I am the most
luckless wight on earth!" Human friendship is a delusion: "I was the
friend of all, and a true friend--for my friends I reckoned life as
little." But he is not served so by others: "Wretched is he who trusts
in fortune; sad is he who hopes in human friendship! Every friend
abandons thee at need, and walks afar from thy sorrow." No good can
come to him who is born for ill: "When I was born, it was at sea,
amongst Turks and Moors. A gipsy asked to tell my fortune; 'Dig,' she
said, 'and thou shalt find a great treasure.' I took the spade in my
hand to dig, but I found neither silver nor gold. Traitress gipsy who
deceived me! Who is born afflicted, dies disconsolate."
So continues the long tale of woe; childish in part, but withal tragic
by other force of iteration. This song of Nardo may be taken as its
epitome:
The heavens were overcast when I was born;
No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn,
E'en from my cradle, all forlorn was I;
No luck for me, no, grief for ever nigh.
I loved--my love was paid by fraud and scorn;
No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn.
The stars and moon were darkened in the sky,
No luck for me, no, naught but misery!
The Calabrians have a house-spirit called the _Auguriellu_, who
appears generally dressed as a little monk, and who has his post
especially by babies' cradles: he is thought to be one of the less
erring fallen angels, and is harmless and even beneficent if kindly
treated. The "house-women" (_Donne di casa_) of Sicily are also in the
habit of watching the sleep of infants. But in no part of Italy does
there seem to be any distinct recollection of the Parcae. In Greece,
on the other hand, the three dread sisters are still honoured by
propitiatory rites, and they figure frequently in the folk-lore of
Bulgaria and Albania. A Bulgarian song shows them weaving the destiny
of the infant Saviour. In M. Auguste Dozon's collection of Albanian
stories, there is one called "The sold child," which bears directly on
the survival of the Parcae. "There was an old man and woman who had no
children" (so runs the tale). "At last at the end of I do not know how
many years, God gave them a son, and their joy was without bounds that
the Lord had thus remembered them. Two nights had passed since the
birth, and the third drew nigh, when the Three Women would come to
assign the child his destiny.
"That night it was raining so frightfully that nobody dared put his
nose out of doors, lest he should be carried away by the waters and
drowned. Nevertheless, who should arrive through the rain but a Pasha,
who asked the old man for a night's lodging. The latter, seeing that
it was a person of importance, was very glad; he put him in the place
of honour at the hearth, lit a large fire, gave him to eat what he
could find; and putting aside certain objects, which he set in a
corner, he made room for the Pasha's horse--for this house was only
half covered in, a part of the roof was missing.
"The Pasha, when he was warmed and refreshed, had nothing more to do
but to go to sleep; but how can one let himself go to sleep when he
has I know not how many thousand piastres about him?
"That night, as we have said already, the Three Women were to come and
apportion the child his destiny. They came, sure enough, and sat down
by the fire. The Pasha, at the sight of that, was in a great fright,
but he kept quiet, and did not make the least sound.
"Let us leave the Pasha and busy ourselves with these women. The first
of the three said, 'This child will not live long; he will die early.'
The second said, replying to her who had just spoken, 'This child
will live many years, and then he will die by the hand of his father.'
Finally the third spoke as follows: 'My friends, what are you talking
about? This child will live sufficiently long to kill the Pasha you
see there, rob him of his authority, and marry his daughter.'"
How the Pasha froze with fear when he heard that sentence, how he
persuaded the old man to let him have the child under pretence of
adopting him, how he endeavoured by every means, but vainly, to put
him out of the way, and how, in the end, he fell into an ambush he
had prepared for his predestined successor, must be read in M. Dozon's
entertaining pages. Though not precisely stated, it would seem that
the mistaken predictions of the two first women arose rather from a
misinterpretation of the future than from complete ignorance. The
boy but narrowly escaped the evils they threatened. In Scandinavian
traditions a disagreement among the Norns is not uncommon. In one
case, two Norns assign to a newborn child long life and happiness, but
the third and youngest decrees that he shall only live while a lighted
taper burns. The eldest Norn snatches the taper, puts it out, and
gives it to the child's mother, not to be kindled till the last day of
his life.
In India it is the deity Bidhata-Purusha who forecasts the events of
each man's life, writing them succinctly on the forehead of the child
six days after birth. The apportionment of good and evil fortune
belongs to Lakshmi and Sani. Once they fell out in heaven, and Sani,
the giver of ill, said that he ranked higher than the beneficent
Lakshmi. The gods and goddesses were equally ranged on either side,
so the two disputants decided to refer the case to a just mortal. To
which end they approached a wise and wealthy man called Sribatsa. Now
Sribatsa means "the child of Fortune," Sri being one of the names of
Lakshmi. Sribatsa did not know what to do lest he should give offence
to one or the other of the celestial powers. At last he set out two
stools without saying a word; one was silver, and on that he bade Sani
sit; the other was gold, and to that he conducted Lakshmi. But Sani
was furious at having only the silver stool, so he swore that he would
cast his evil eye upon Sribatsa for three years, "and I should like to
see how you fare at the end of that time," he added. When he was gone,
Lakshmi said: "My child, do not fear; I'll befriend you." Needless to
say that after the three trial years were passed, Sribatsa became far
more prosperous than he had ever been before.
Among the Parsis, a tray with writing materials including a sheet of
blank paper is placed by the mother's bed on the night of the sixth
day. The goddess who rules human destiny traces upon the paper the
course of the child's future, which henceforth cannot be changed,
though the writing is invisible to mortal eyes.
In Calabria there is a plant called "Fortune's Grass," which is
suspended to the beams of the ceiling: if the leaves turn upwards,
Fortune is sure to follow; if downwards, things may be expected to go
wrong. The oracle is chiefly consulted on Ascension Day, when it is
asked to tell the secrets confided to it by Christ when He walked upon
the earth.
Auguries, portents, charms, waxen images, votive offerings, the evil
eye and its antidotes, happy "finds," such as horseshoes, four-leaved
shamrocks, and two-tailed lizards: these, and an infinite number of
kindred superstitions, are closely linked with what may be called
the Science of Luck. Fortune and Hecate come into no mere chance
contiguity when they meet in the moon. For the rest, there is hardly
any popular belief that has not points of contact with magic, and that
is not in some sort made the more comprehensible by looking at the
premises on which magical rites rest. Magic is the power admitted to
exist among all classes not so very long ago, of entering by certain
processes into relation with invisible powers. For modern convenience
it was distinguished into black magic, and natural, and white--the
latter name being given when the intention of the operant was only
good or allowable, and when the powers invoked were only such as
might be supposed, whether great or small, to be working in good
understanding with the Creator. The reason of existence of all magic,
which runs up into unfathomable antiquity, lies in the maxim of the
ancient sages, Egyptian, Hebrew, Platonist, that all things visible
and sensible are but types of things or beings immediately above
them, and have their origin in such. Hence, in magical rites, black
or white, men used and offered to the unseen powers those words or
actions or substances which were conceived to be in correspondence
with their character or nature, employing withal certain secret
traditional man[oe]uvres. The lowest surviving form is fetish;
sacrifice also had a similar source; so had the Mosaic prescriptions,
in which only innocent rites and pure substances were to be employed.
Whereas the most horrible practices and repulsive substances have
always been associated with witches, necromancers, &c., who are
reported to have put their wills at the absolute disposal of the
infernal and malevolent powers who work in direct counter-action of
the decrees and providence of the Deity. Hence the renunciation of
baptism, treading on holy things, the significant act of saying the
Lord's Prayer backwards, _i.e._, in the opposite intention to that of
the author. This is the consummate sin of _pacti_, or, as it is said,
"selling the soul," and is the very opposite of divine magic or the
way of the typical saint: "Present yourselves a living sacrifice (not
a dead carcase) in body, soul, and spirit." To persons in the last
condition unusual effects have been ascribed, as it was believed that
those who had put themselves at the absolute disposal of the malignant
powers were also enabled to effect singular things, on the wrong side,
indeed, and very inferior in order, so long as the agreement held
good.
The most sensible definition of magic is "an effect sought to be
produced by antecedents obviously inadequate in themselves." Certain
words, gestures, practices, have been recognised on the tradition of
ancient experience to have certain remedial or other properties or
consequents, and they are used in all simplicity by persons who can
find no other reason than that they are thought to succeed.
One of the most remarkable of early ideas still current about human
destiny is that which pictures each man coupled with a personal and
individualised fate. This fate may be beneficent or maleficent, a
guardian angel or a possessive fiend; or it may, in appearance at
least, combine both functions. The belief in a personal fate was
deeply rooted among the Greeks and Romans, and proved especially
acceptable to the Platonists. Socrates' daemon comes to mind: but in
that case the analogy is not clear, because the inward voice to
which the name of daemon was afterwards given, was rather a personal
conscience than a personal fate--a difference that involves the whole
question of the responsibility of man. But the evil genii of Dion the
Syracusan and of Brutus were plainly "personal fates." Dion's evil
genius appeared to him when he was sitting alone in the portico before
his house one evening; it had the form of a gigantic woman, like one
of the furies as they were represented on the stage, sweeping the
floor with a broom. It did not speak, but the apparition was followed
by the death of Dion's son, who jumped in a fit of childish passion
from the house-top, and soon after, Dion himself was assassinated.
Brutus' daemon was, as every-one knows, a monstrous spectre that seemed
to be standing beside him in his tent one night, a little while before
he left Asia, and which, on being questioned, said to him, "I am thy
evil genius, Brutus, thou wilt see me at Philippi."
We catch sight again of the personal fate in the relations of
Antony with the young Octavius. Antony had in his house an Egyptian
astrologer, who advised him by all means to keep away from the young
man, "for your genius," he said, "is in fear of his; when it is alone
its port is erect and fearless, when his approaches it, it is dejected
and depressed." There were circumstances, says Plutarch, that carried
out this view, for in every kind of play, whether they cast lots or
cast the die, Antony was still the loser; in their cock fights and
quail fights, it was still "Caesar's cock and Caesar's quail."
In ancient Norse and Teutonic traditions, where Salida, or Frau Saelde,
takes the place of Fortuna, we find indications of the personal fate,
both kindly and unkindly. The fate appeared to its human turn chiefly
in the hour of death, that is, in the hour of parting company.
Sometimes it was attached not to one person, but to a whole family,
passing on from one to another, as in the case of the not yet extinct
superstition of the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns.
In a very old German story, quoted by Jacob Grimm, a poor knight is
shown, eating his frugal meal in a wood, who on looking up, sees
a monstrous creature among the boughs which cries, "I am thy
_ungeluecke_!" The knight asks his "ill-luck" to share his meal, and
when it comes down, catches it, and shuts it up in a hollow oak.
Someone, who wishes to do him an ill-turn, lets out the _ungeluecke_;
but instead of reverting to the knight, it jumps on the back of its
evil-minded deliverer.
In the Sicilian story of "Feledico and Epomata," one of those
collected by Frauelein Laura Gonzenbach,[2] a childless king and queen
desire to have children. One day they see a soothsayer going by: they
call him in, and he says that the queen will bear a son, but that he
will die when he is eighteen years of age. The grief of the royal pair
is extreme, and they ask the soothsayer for advice what to do. He can
only suggest that they should shut the child up in a tower till the
unlucky hour be past, after which his fate will have no more power
over him. This is accordingly done, and the child sees no one in the
tower but the nurse and a lady of the court, whom he believes to be
his mother. One day, when the lady has gone to make her report to the
queen, the boy hears his fate crying to him in his sleep, and asking
why he stays shut up there, when his real father and mother are king
and queen and live in a fine castle? He makes inquiries, and at first
is pacified by evasive answers, but after three visits of his fate,
who always utters the same words, he insists on going to the castle
and seeing his father and mother. "His fate has found him out, there
is no good in resisting it," says the queen. However, by the agency
of Epomata, the beautiful daughter of an enchantress, who had conveyed
the prince to her castle, and had provided for his execution on the
very day ordained by his fate, Feledico tides over the fatal moment
and attains a good old age.
Hahn states that the Greek name of [Greek: Moirai] is given by the
Albanians to what I have called personal fates, as well as to the
Parcae; but the Turkish designation of _Bakht_, meaning a sort of
protecting spirit, seems to be in more common use. The Albanian
story-teller mentions a negress who is in want of some sequins, and
who says, "Go and find my fortune (_Bakht_), but first make her a
cake, and when you offer it to her, ask her for a few gold pieces."
A like propitiatory offering of food to one's personal fate forms a
feature of a second Sicilian story which is so important in all its
bearings on the subject in hand, that it would not do to abridge it.
Here it is, therefore, in its entirety.
There was a certain merchant who was so rich that he had
treasures which not even the king possessed. In his audience
chamber there were three beautiful arm-chairs, one of silver,
one of gold, and one of diamonds. This merchant had an only
daughter of the name of Caterina, who was fairer than the sun.
One day Caterina sat alone in her room, when suddenly the door
opened of itself, and there entered a tall and beautiful lady,
who held a wheel in her hands. "Caterina," said she, "when
would you like best to enjoy your life? in youth, or in age?"
Caterina gazed at her in amazement, and could not get over her
stupor. The beautiful lady asked again, "Caterina, when do you
wish to enjoy your life in youth or in age?" Then Caterina
thought, "If I say in youth, I shall have to suffer in age;
hence I prefer to enjoy my life in age, and in youth I must
get on as the Lord wills." So she said, "In age." "Be it unto
you according to your desire," said the beautiful lady, who
gave a turn to her wheel, and disappeared. This tall and
beautiful lady was poor Caterina's fate. After a few days her
father received the sudden news that several of his ships had
gone down in a storm; again, after a few days, other of his
ships met with the same fate, and to make a long story short,
a month had not gone by before he saw himself despoiled of all
his wealth. He had to sell everything, and remained poor and
miserable, and finally he fell ill and died. Thus poor
Caterina was left alone in the world, and no one would give
her a home. Then she thought, "I will go to another city and
will seek a place as serving-maid." She wandered a long way
till she reached another city. As she passed down the street,
she saw at a window a worthy-looking lady, who questioned her.
"Where are you going, all alone, fair girl?" "Oh! noble lady,
I am a poor girl, and I would willingly go into service to
earn my bread. Could you, by chance, employ me?" The worthy
lady engaged her, and Caterina served her faithfully. After a
few days the lady said one evening, "Caterina, I am going out,
and shall lock the house-door." "Very well," said Caterina,
and when her mistress was gone, she took her work and began to
sew. Suddenly the door opened, and her fate came in. "So!"
cried this one, "you are here, Caterina, and you think that I
shall leave you in peace!" With these words, she ran to the
cupboards and turned out the linen and clothes of Caterina's
mistress, and threw them all about the room. Caterina thought,
"When my mistress returns and finds everything in such a
state, she will kill me!" And out of fear she broke open the
door and fled. But her fate made all the things right again,
and gathered them up and put them in their places. When the
mistress came home, she called Caterina, but she could not
find her anywhere. She thought she must have robbed her, but
when she looked at her cupboards, she saw that nothing was
missing. She wondered greatly, but Caterina never came
back--she ran and ran till she reached another city, when, as
she passed along the street, she saw once more a lady at a
window, who asked her, "Where are you going, all alone, fair
girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and I wish to find a
place so as to earn my bread. Could you take me?" The lady
took her into her service, and Caterina thought now to remain
in peace. Only a few days had passed, when one evening, when
the lady was out, Caterina's fate appeared again, and spoke
hard words to her, saying, "So you are here, are you? and you
think to escape from me?" Then she scattered whatever she
could lay hands on, and poor Caterina once more fled out of
fright.
To be brief, poor Caterina had to lead this terrible life for
seven years, flying from city to city in search of a place.
Whenever she entered service, after a few days her fate always
appeared and disordered her mistress' things, and so the poor
girl had to fly. As soon as she was gone, however, her fate
repaired all the damage that had been done. At last, after
seven years, it seemed as if the unhappy Caterina's fate was
weary of persecuting her. One day she arrived in a city where
she saw a lady at a window, who said, "Where go you, all
alone, fair girl?" "Ah! noble lady, I am a poor girl, and
willingly would I enter service to earn my bread; could you
employ me?" The lady replied, "I will take you, but every day
you will have to do me a certain service, and I am not sure
that you have the strength." "Tell me what it is," said
Caterina, "and if I can, I will do it." "Do you see that high
mountain?" said the lady; "every morning you will have to
carry up to the top a baker's tray of new bread, and then you
must cry aloud, 'O fate of my mistress!' three times repeated.
My fate will appear and will receive the bread." "I will do it
willingly," said Caterina, and thereupon the lady engaged her.
With this lady Caterina stayed many years, and every morning
she carried the tray of fresh bread up the mountain, and after
she had cried three times, "O fate of my mistress!" there
appeared a beautiful, stately lady, who received the bread.
Caterina often wept, thinking how she, who was once so rich,
had now to work like any poor girl, and one day her mistress
asked her, "Why are you always crying?" Caterina told her how
ill things had gone with her, and her mistress said, "You
know, Caterina, when you take the bread up the mountain
to-morrow? Well, do you beg my fate to try and persuade yours
to leave you in peace. Perhaps this may do some good." The
advice pleased poor Caterina, and the following morning when
she carried up the bread, she told her mistress' fate of the
sore straits she was in, and said, "O fate of my mistress,
pray ask my fate no longer to torment me." "Ah! poor girl,"
the fate answered, "your fate is covered with a sevenfold
covering, and that is why she cannot hear you. But to-morrow
when you come, I will lead you to her." When Caterina had gone
home, her mistress' fate went to her fate, and said, "Dear
sister, why are you not tired of persecuting poor Caterina?
Let her once again see happy days." The fate replied,
"To-morrow bring her to me; I will give her something that
will supply all her needs." The next morning, when Caterina
brought the bread, her mistress' fate conducted her to her own
fate, who was covered with a sevenfold covering. The fate gave
her a skein of silk, and said, "Take care of it, it will be of
use to you." After she had returned home, Caterina said to her
mistress, "My fate has made me a present of a skein of silk;
what ought I to do with it?" "It is not worth three grains of
corn," said the mistress. "Keep it, all the same; who knows
what it may be good for?"
After some time, it happened that the young king was about to
take a wife, and, therefore, he had himself made some new
clothes. But when the tailor was going to make up one fine
piece of stuff, he could not anywhere find silk of the same
colour with which to sew it. The king had it cried through the
land, that whosoever had silk of the right colour was to bring
it to court, and would be well paid for his pains. "Caterina,"
said her mistress, "your skein of silk is of that colour; take
it to the king and he will make you a fine present." Caterina
put on her best gown, and went to court, and when she came
before the king, she was so beautiful that he could not take
his eyes off her. "Royal Majesty," she said, "I have brought a
skein of silk of the colour you could not find." "Royal
majesty," cried one of the ministers, "we should give her the
weight of her silk in gold." The king agreed, and the scales
were brought in. On one side the king placed the skein of
silk, and on the other a gold piece. Now, what do you think
happened? The silk was always the heaviest, no matter how many
gold pieces the king placed in the balance. Then he ordered a
larger pair of scales, and he put all his treasure to the one
side, but the silk remained the heaviest. Then he took his
gold crown off his head and set it with the other treasure,
and upon that the two scales became even.
"Where did you get this silk?" asked the king. "Royal Majesty,
my mistress gave it to me." "That is not possible," cried the
king. "If you do not tell me the truth I will have your head
cut off!" Caterina related all that had happened to her since
the time when she was a rich maiden. At Court there was a very
wise lady, who said: "Caterina, you have suffered much, but
now you will see happy days, and since the gold crown made the
balance even, it is a sign that you will live to be a queen."
"She shall be a queen," cried the king, "I will make her a
queen! Caterina and no other shall be my bride." And so it
was. The king sent to his bride to say that he no longer
wanted her, and married the fair Caterina, who, after much
suffering in youth, enjoyed her age in full prosperity, living
happy and content, whereof we have assured testimony.
The most suggestive passages in this ingenious story are those which
refer to the relative positions of a man and his fate, and of one fate
to another. On these points something further is to be gleaned from
an Indian, a Servian, and a Spanish tale, all having a family likeness
amongst themselves, and a strong affinity with our story. The Indian
variant is one of the collection due to the youthful energies of Miss
Maive Stokes, whose book of "Indian Fairy Tales" is a model of
what such a book ought to be. The Servian tale is to be found in
Karadschitsch's "Volksmaerschen der Serben;" the Spanish in Fernan
Caballero's "Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluses." The chief
characteristics of the personal fates, as they appear in folk-lore,
may be briefly summarised. In the first place, they know each other,
and are acquainted up to a given point with one another's secrets.
Thus, in the Servian story, a man who goes to seek his fate is
commissioned by persons he meets on the road to ask it questions
touching their own private concerns. A rich householder wants to know
why his servants are always hungry, however much food he gives them
to eat, and why "his aged, miserable father and mother do not die?"
A farmer would have him ask why his cattle perish; and a river, whose
waters bear him across, is anxious to know why no living thing dwells
in it. The fate gives a satisfactory answer to each inquiry.
The fates exercise a certain influence, one over the other, and hence
over the destinies of the people in their charge. Caterina's mistress'
fate intercedes for her with her own fate. The attention of the fates
is not always fixed on the persons under them: they may be prevented
from hearing by fortuitous circumstances, such as the "seven coverings
or veils" of Caterina's fate, or they may be asleep, or absent from
home. Their home, by the by, is invariably placed in a spot very
difficult to get at. In the Spanish variant, the palace of Fortune is
raised "where our Lord cried three times and was not heard"--it is up
a rock so steep that not even a goat can climb it, and the sunbeams
lose their footing when trying to reach the top. A personal fate is
propitiated by suitable offerings, or, if obdurate, it may be brought
to reason by a well-timed punishment. The Indian beats his fate-stone,
just as the Ostyak beats his fetish if it does not behave well and
bring him sport. The Sicilian story gives no hint of this alternative,
but it is one strictly in harmony with the Italian way of thinking,
whether ancient or modern. Statius' declaration:
Fataque, et injustos rabidis pulsare querelis
Caelicolas solamen erat ...
was frequently put into practice, as when, upon the death of
Germanicus, the Roman populace cast stones at the temples, and the
altars were levelled to the ground, and the Lares thrown into the
street. Again, Augustus took revenge on Neptune for the loss of his
fleet, by not allowing his image to be carried in the procession of
the Circensian games. It is on record that at Florence, in 1498, a
ruined gamester pelted the image of the Virgin with horse dung. Luca
Landucci, who tells the story, says that the Florentines were shocked;
but in the southern kingdom the incident would have passed without
much notice. The Neapolitans have hardly now left off heaping
torrents of abuse on San Gennaro if he fails to perform the miracle
of liquefaction quick enough. Probably every country could furnish an
illustration. In the grand procession of St Leonhard, the Bavarians
used from time to time to drop the Saint into the river, as a sort of
gentle warning.
The physical presentment of the personal fate differs considerably.
According to the Indian account, "the fates are stones, some standing,
and others lying on the ground." It has been said that this looks like
a relic of stock and stone worship: which is true if it can be said
unreservedly that anyone ever worshipped a stock or a stone.
The lowest stage of fetish worship only indicates a diseased
spiritualism--a mental state in which there is no hedge between the
real and the imagined. No savage ever supposed that his fetish was a
simple three-cornered stone and nothing more. If one could guess
the thoughts of the pigeon mentioned by Mr Romanes as worshipping a
gingerbeer bottle, it would be surely seen that this pigeon
believed his gingerbeer bottle to be other than a piece of unfeeling
earthenware. It is, however, a sign of progress when man begins to
picture the ruling powers not as stones, or even as animals, but as
men. This point is reached in the Servian narrative, where the hero's
fortune is a hag given to him as his luck by fate. In the Spanish
tale, the aspect of the personal fate varies with its character: the
fortunate man's fate is a lovely girl, the fate of the unfortunate
man being a toothless old woman. In the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista
Basile, Fortune is also spoken of as an old woman, but this seems a
departure from the true Italian ideal, which is neither a stone nor a
luck-hag, nor yet a varying fair-and-foul fortune, but a "bella, alta
Signora:" the imposing figure that surmounts the wheel of fortune
on the marble pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. It is a graver
conception than the gracefully fickle goddess of Jean Cousin's "Liber
Fortunae":
... On souloit la pourtraire,
Tenant un voile afin d'aller au gre du vent
Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien avant.
Shakespeare had the Emblematist's Fortune in his mind when he wrote:
"Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify
to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant,
and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a
spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls."
In hands less light than Cousin's, it was easy for the Fortune of the
emblem writers to become grotesque, and to lose all artistic merit.
The Italian Fortuna does not in the least lend herself to caricature.
In Italy, the objects of thought, even of the common people, have
the tendency to assume concrete and aesthetic forms--a fact of great
significance in the history of a people destined to render essential
service to art.
The "tall, beautiful lady" of the Sicilian story, reappears in a
series of South Italian folk-songs which contains further evidence of
this unconsciously artistic instinct. The Italian folk-poet, for the
most part, lets the lore of tradition altogether alone. It does not
lie in his province, which is purely lyrical. But he has seized upon
Fortune as a myth very capable of lyrical treatment, and following the
free bent of his genius, he has woven out of his subject the delicate
fancies of these songs. A series in the sense of being designed to
form a consecutive whole, they, of course, are not. No two, probably,
had the same author; the perfect individuality of the figure
presented, only showing how a type may be so firmly fixed that the
many have no difficulty in describing it with the consistency of one
man who draws the creation of his own brain.