Part 6 (1/2)
The authenticity of this legend, is more than doubtful, because it exists elsewhere, as I have read it, being unable to give my authority; but unless my memory deceives me, it goes back to cla.s.sic times, and may be found in some such work as that of Philostratus _de Vita Apollonii_ or Grosius. Neither am I well a.s.sured, to judge from the source whence I had it, that it is current among the people, though no great measure of credulity is here required, since it may be laid down as a rule, with rarest exception, that there is no old Roman tale of the kind which may not be unearthed with pains and patience among old Tuscan peasant women.
However, the _s.h.i.+eld_ is still on the corner of the Via Calzaioli, albeit one of the nymphs on it has been knocked or worn away. Thus even _fates_ must yield in time to fate.
I have in a note to another legend spoken of the instinct which seems to lead children or grown people to a.s.sociate wells with indwelling fairies, to hear a voice in the echo, and see a face in the reflection in the still water. Keats has beautifully expressed it in ”Endymion”:
”Some mouldered steps lead into this cool cell Far as the slabbed margin of a well, Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye Right upward through the bushes to the sky. . . .
Upon a day when thus I watched . . . behold!
A wonder fair as any I have told- The same bright face I tasted in my sleep Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap Through the cool depth. . . .
Or 'tis the cell of Echo, where she sits And babbles thorough silence till her wits Are gone in tender madness, and anon Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone.”
”In which tale,” writes the immortal Flaxius, ”there is a pretty allegory. Few there are who know why truth is said to be at the bottom of a well; but this I can indeed declare to you. For as a mirror was above all things an emblem of truth, because it shows all things exactly as they are, so the water in a well was, as many traditions prove, considered as a mirror, because looking into it we see our face, which we of course most commonly see in a gla.s.s, and this disk of s.h.i.+ning water resembles in every way a hand-mirror. And for this reason a mirror was also regarded as expressing life itself, for which reason people so greatly fear to break them. So in the Latin, _Velut in speculo_, and in the Italian, _Vero come un specchio_-'True as a mirror,' we have the same idea. And a poet has written, 'Mirrored as in a well,' and many have re-echoed the same pretty fancy.
”Which reminds me that in the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate maidens were wont to go to a well by moonlight, and if on looking therein they saw their own faces, they believed that they would soon be happily married.
But if a cloud darkened the moon and they saw nothing, then they would die old maids. But luckiest of all was it if they fancied they saw a man's face, for this would be the future husband himself.
”Now it befell that a certain youth near Heidelberg fell into a well, or put himself there, when a certain maid whom he loved, came and looked in, and believing that she saw the face of her destined spouse, went away in full faith that the fairy of the well had taken his form, and so she married him. Which, if it be not true, is _ben trovato_.
”Truth is always represented, be it remembered, as holding a mirror.
”And note also that the hand-mirror and the well were strangely connected in ancient times, as appears by Pausanias, who states that before a certain temple of Ceres hung a _speculum_, which, after it had been immersed in a neighbouring well or spring, showed invalids by reflection whether they would live or die. And with all this, the holding a mirror to the mouth of an insensible person to tell whether the breath was still in the body, seemed also to make it an indicator of life.”
”Thus in life all things do pa.s.s, As it were, in magic gla.s.s.”
THE STORY OF THE VIA DELLE SERVE SMARRITE
”We all do know the usual way In which our handmaids go astray, But in this tale the situation Has a peculiar variation; How an old wizard-strange occurrence!
Deluded all the girls in Florence, (It needs no magic now to do it), And how the maidens made him rue it, For having seized on him and stripped him, They tied him up and soundly whipped him.”
The author of ”The Cities of Central Italy,” speaking of Siena, says that ”In its heart, where its different hill-promontories unite, is the Piazza del Campo, lately-with the time-serving which disgraces every town in Italy-called Vittorio Emanuele.” And with the stupidity and bad taste which seems to characterise all munic.i.p.al governments in this respect all the world over, that of Florence has changed most of the old names of this kind, and in order to render the confusion more complete, has put the new names just over the old ones, with the simple addition of the word _Gia_ or ”formerly.” Whence came the legend current in the Anglo-American colony, that a newly arrived young lady, not as yet beyond the second lesson in Ollendorff, being asked where she lived, answered in _Gia_ Street. She forgot the rest of the name.
One of these gaping _gias_ is the Via del Parlascio _gia Via delle Serve Smarrite_, or the street of the maidservants strayed away or gone astray.
Now Florence is famous for its pretty servant-girls, and if I may believe a halfpenny work, ent.i.tled ”Seven Charming Florentine Domestics,” now before me, which is racy of the soil-or dirt-and appears to be written from life [as accurate portraits of all the fascinating seven are given], I opine that the damsel of this cla.s.s who had never been, I do not say a wife, but a waif and a stray, must be a phenomenal rarity. Therefore it was suggested to me that it was formerly in very ancient times the custom to send all such stray cattle to the pound, that is, to dwell in this street as a kind of Ghetto. But the folly of this measure soon became apparent when it was found that one might as well try to get all the cats in Tuscany into a hand-basket, or all its flies-or fleas-under one tumbler, as try to make a comprehensive menagerie of these valuable animals, who were, however, by no means curiosities. So the attempt was abandoned, and thenceforth the maidens were allowed to stray wherever they pleased, but under some slight supervision; whence it was said of them that they were _le lucertole chi cominciano a sentir il sole_-”fireflies which begin to see the sun”-a proverb which the learned and genial Orlando Peschetti (1618) explains as being applicable to those who, having been in prison and then set free, are still watched, but which appears to me rather to refer to the suspected who are ”shadowed”
before they are arrested.
But in due time I received from good authority an ancient legend of the Via delle Serve Smarrite, in which the origin of the name is explained as follows:
VIA DELLE SERVE SMARRITE.
”There was long ago, in what was afterwards called the Via delle Serve Smarrite, or Stray Maid-Servants' Street, a very ancient and immensely large house, which was generally supposed to be vacant, and in which no one cared to dwell, or even approach, since there were dreadful tales of evil deeds done in it, and reports that it was a gathering-place for witches, goblins, and _diavoli_. The clanking of chains and peals of horrid laughter rung from its chambers at midnight, blue and green fires gleamed from its windows, and everybody all around had heard from somebody else that the nightmares had there their special nest, from which they sailed forth to afflict all Florence.
”Yet all this was a trick which was often played in those days, when _gente non dabbene_ or evil folk and outlaws wanted to keep a house to themselves, and there were no newspapers to publish every mystery. For there were a great many who went in there, but few who ever came out, and these were all young and pretty servant-maids. And the way it was managed was this. When such girls were sent to the market to buy provisions, they always met there or elsewhere an old woman who pretended to be extremely pious, {43} who, by using many arts and making small gifts, and above all by subtle flatteries, persuaded them that service was only fit for _gentaccia_ or the dregs of the people, and that, beautiful and graceful as they were, they needed only live like ladies for a little time at ease, and they would soon be fit to marry some Signore, and that she herself would thus maintain them, hoping they would pay her well for it all when once married. And I need not say that the trick generally succeeded.