Part 28 (1/2)
”Then the two witches began to scream and protest in a rage, but as soon as they opened their mouths, holy water was dashed into their faces, whereat they howled more horribly than ever, and at last promised, if their lives should be spared in any manner, to tell the whole truth, and to disenchant the bride. Which they forthwith did.
”Then those present seized the witches, and said: 'Your lives shall indeed be spared, but it is only just that ere ye go ye shall be as nicely combed, according to the proverb which says, ”Comb me and I'll comb thee!”'
”Said and done, but the combing this time drew blood, and the mother and daughter, shrinking smaller and smaller, flew away at last as two vile carrion-flies through the window.
”And as the story spread about Florence, every one came to see the house where this had happened, and so it was that the street got the name of the _Via della Mosca_ or Fly Lane.”
There is a curious point in this story well worth noting. In it the sorceress lulls the maiden to sleep before transforming her, that is, causes her death before reviving her with a comb of thorns. Now, the thorn is a deep symbol of death-naturally enough from its dagger-like form-all over the world wherever it grows. As Schwenck writes:
”In the Germanic mythology the thorn is an emblem of death, as is the nearly allied long and deep slumber-the idea being that death kills with a sharp instrument which is called in the Edda the sleep-thorn, which belongs to Odin the G.o.d of death. It also occurs as a person in the Nibelungen Lied as Hogni, Hagen, 'the thorn who kills Siegfried.' The tale of Dornroschen (the sleeping beauty), owes its origin to the sleep-thorn, which is, however, derived from the death-thorn, death being an eternal sleep.”
This is all true, and sleep is like death. But the soothing influence of a comb produces sleep quite apart from any a.s.sociation with death.
Apropos of flies, there is a saying, which is, like all new or eccentric sayings, or old and odd ones revived, called ”American.” It is, ”There are no flies on him,” or more vulgarly, ”I ain't got no flies on _me_,”
and signifies that the person thus exempt is so brisk and active, and ”flies round” at such a rate, that no insect has an opportunity to alight on him. The same saying occurs in the _Proverbi Italiani_ of Orlando Pescetti, Venice, 1618, _Non si lascia posar le mosche addosso_ (He lets no flies light on him).
When I was a small boy in America, the general teaching to us was that it was cruel to kill flies, and I have heard it ill.u.s.trated with a tale of an utterly depraved little girl of three years, who, addressing a poor fly which was buzzing in the window-pane, said:
”Do you love your Dod, 'ittle fy?”
”Do you want to _see_ your Dod, 'ittle fy?”
”Well” (with a vicious jab of the finger), ”you SHALL!”
And with the last word the soul of the fly had departed to settle its accounts in another world. Writing here in Siena, the most fly-accursed or Beelzebubbed town in Italy, on July 25th, being detained by illness, I love that little angel of a girl, and think with utter loathing and contempt of dear old Uncle Toby and his ”Go-go, poor fly!” True, I agree with him to his second ”go,” but there our sentiments diverge-the reader may complete the sentence for himself-out of Ernulphus!
On which the wise Flaxius comments as follows on the proof with his red pencil:
”It hath been observed by the learned that the speed of a fly, were he to make even a slight effort to go directly onwards, would be from seventy to eighty miles an hour, during which transit he would find far more attractive food, pleasanter places wherein to buzz about, and more beautiful views than he meets with in this humble room of mine, wherein I, from hour to hour, do with a towel rise and slay his kind. Oh, reader! how many men there are who, to soaring far and wide in life amid honeyed flowers and pleasant places, prefer to buzz about in short flights in little rooms where they can tease some one, and defile all they touch as domestic gossips do-but, 'tis enough!
_Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur_!”
THE ROMAN VASE A LEGEND OF BELLOSGUARDO
”From Tuscan Bellosguardo Where Galileo stood at nights to take The vision of the stars, we have found it hard, Gazing upon the earth and heavens, to make A choice of beauty.”-ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Bellosguardo is an eminence on a height, crowned with an ancient, castle-like monastery, from which there is a magnificent view of Florence. It is a haunted legendary spot; _fate_ and witches sweep round its walls by night, while the cry of the _civetta_ makes music for their aerial dance, and in the depths of the hill lie buried mystic treasures, or the relics of mysterious beings of the olden time, and the gnome of the rocks there has his dwelling in subterranean caves. Of this place I have the following legend from Maddalena:
IL VASO ROMANO.
”There was, long ago, in the time of Duke Lorenzo di Medici, a young gardener, who was handsome, clever, and learned beyond the other men of his kind, a man given somewhat to witchcraft and mysteries of ancient days, for he had learned Latin of the monks and read books of history.
”And one day when he was working with his companions in the garden of Bellosguardo, taking out stones, they came to an old Roman vase, which the rest would fain have broken to pieces as a heathenish and foul thing, because there was carved on it the figure of a beautiful Pagan G.o.ddess, and it was full of the ashes of some dead person. But the young man suddenly felt a great pa.s.sion, a desire to possess it, and it seemed as if something said to him, '_Con questo vaso cie un mistero_.'
”'Mine own in truth that vase shall ever be, For there is in it some strange mystery.'
”So he begged for it, and it was readily granted to him. And looking at it, he perceived that it was carved of fine marble, and that the figure on it was that of a beautiful nymph, or a Bellaria flying in the air, and there came from the ashes which it held a sweet odour of some perfume which was unknown to him. Now as he had, _sent.i.to ragionare tanto di fate_, heard much talk of supernatural beings, so he reflected: 'Some _fata_ must have dwelt here in days of old, and she was here buried, and this vase is now as a body from which the spirit freely pa.s.ses, therefore I will show it respect.'
”And so he hung round the neck of the vase a wreath of the most beautiful and fragrant roses, and draped a veil over it to s.h.i.+eld it from dust, and set it up under cover in his own garden, and sang to it as follows:
”'Vaso! o mio bel vaso!
Di rose ti ho contornato.