Part 24 (2/2)
”'Alas, no!' replied the debtor; 'not one half; nor will they ever get the rest, for I have naught.'
”'In that case,' answered the Canon, 'it seems to me that it is your creditors and not you who should read that charming book, since it is evident that, as they are to have nothing till the Greek Kalends, or on Saint Never's day, that they must have patience whether they will or no.'
”Well, as the saying is, _Pazienza vince scienza_ (Patience beats knowledge), and _Chi ha pazienza vede le sue vendette_ (Wait long enough and you'll get your revenges), the Canon got for the poor man money enough to make a composition with his creditors, and he, having expectations which they knew not of, compounded with them for five per cent., on conditions written, that he should pay all up 'as he earned more money.'
”And so he was set free, and it befell on a day that some relation died and left him a fortune, whereupon his creditors summoned him to pay his old debts, which he refused to do. Then they cited him before the Council as a fraudulent debtor, but he replied by showing his quittance or agreement, and declared that he was only obliged to pay out of his _earnings_, and that he had inherited his money and not earned it.
Whereupon there was great dispute, and one of the creditors who had shown himself most unfeeling and inhuman protested that to get money in any way whatever was to _guadagnare_ (a gain by labour), since it was labour even to put it in one's pocket. Now, this man had a handsome wife, who, it was generally known, greatly enriched her husband by dishonouring him, at which he willingly winked.
”Whereupon the debtor asked the magistrate if an ox carried off a bundle of hay on his horns, which had by chance been stuck into it, he could be said to have earned it by honest labour? At which there was such a roar of laughter, and so many cries of 'No! no! no!' that the court went no further, and acquitted the culprit.”
There is an odd bit of folklore attached to this church. As may be supposed, and as I have frequently verified, ”the idle repet.i.tion of vain words,” as the heathen do, or prayers in a language which people do not understand, generally lead to most ridiculous perversions of the unknown tongue. A popular specimen of this is the _Salve Regina delle Ciane Fiorentine di San Lorenzo_, or the ”_Salve Regina_ of the Florentine women of the lower cla.s.s, as given in San Lorenzo.” _Ciana_ is given by Barretti as a specially Florentine word.
LA SALVE REGINA.
”Sarvia della Regina, dreco la Misericordia, vita d'un cieco, spezia nostra, sarvia tua, te chiamao esule, fili e vacche!
”Ate sospirao, i' gemeo fetente in barca e lacrima la valle.
”L' la eggo educata nostra, _illons in tus_.
”Misericordia se' cieli e in ossi e coperte, e lesine benedette, frutti, ventri, tubi, novi, posti cocche, esilio e tende!
”O crema, o pia, o dorce virgola Maria!-Ammenne!”
This is perfectly in the spirit of the Middle Ages, of which so much is still found in the cheapest popular Italian literature. I have elsewhere mentioned that it was long before the Reformation, when the Church was at the height of her power, that blasphemies, travesties of religious services, and scathing sarcasms of monkish life reached their extreme, and were never equalled afterwards, even by Protestant satirists. The _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_ of Hutten and Reuchlin was an avowed caricature by an enemy. The revelations of monkish life by Boccaccio, Cintio, Arlotto, and a hundred other good Catholics, were a thousand times more damaging than the _Epistolae_, because they were the unconscious betrayals of friends.
Since writing the foregoing, I have obtained the following, ent.i.tled, _The Pater Noster of the Country People in the Old Market_, or,
IL PATER NOSTER DEI BECERI DI MERCATO.
”Pate nostro quisin celi sanctifice tuore nome tumme; avvenia regno tumme; fia te volunta stua, in celo en terra.
”Pane nostro cotediano da n.o.bis sodie, e dimitti n.o.bis debita nostra, sicutte ette nos dimittimus debitori nostri, sette ananossie in due ca.s.se, intenzione sedie nosse e mulo.-Amenne!”
There is, however, this great difference in the two prayers here given, that the _Salve Regina_ is intended for a jest, while the paternoster is given as actually taken down from a _ciana_, and is rather a specimen of dialect than a _jeu d'esprit_. The following _Ave Maria_ is also serious, and simply a curiosity of language:-
L'AVE MARIA.
”Avemmaria grazia piena, domin teco beneditta e frustris, e mulieri busse e benedetti fruttus ventris tui eiusse!
”Santa Maria Materdei, ora pro n.o.bisse, pecatoribusse, tinche, tinona, mortis nostrisse.-Ammenne!”
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