“Images, though made by men, are the bodies of gods, rendered perceptible to the sight and touch. In the images are certain spirits brought by invitation, after which they have the power of doing whatever they please; either to hurt, or to a certain extent to fulfil the desires of those persons by whom divine honours and duteous worship are rendered unto them. . . . Do you not see, O Asclepias, that statues are animated by sense, and actually capable of doing such actions?”—Hermes Trismegistus, ap. Augustine, C. D., viii. 23.

“And there withall Diana gan appere
With bowe in hand, right as an hunteresse,
And saydÉ, ‘Daughter—stint thin heavinesse. . . .’
And forth she went and made a vanishing.”

Chaucer: The Knighte’s Tale.

There was in the oldest times in Florence a noble family, but one so impoverished that their giorni di festa, or feast-days, were few and far between. However, they dwelt in their old palace, which was in the street now called the Via Citadella, which was a fine old building, and so they lived in style before the world, when many a day they hardly had anything to eat.

Round this palace was a large garden in which stood an ancient marble statue of a beautiful woman, running very rapidly, with a dog by her side. She held in her hand a bow, and on her forehead was a small moon; it seemed as if, instead of being in a garden, she was in a forest hunting wild game. And it was said that by night, when all was still and no one present, and the moon shone, the statue became like life, and very beautiful, and then she fled away and did not return till the moon set, or the sun rose.

The father of the family had two children, a boy and a girl, of nine or ten years of age, and they were as good as they were intelligent, and like most clever children, very fond of curious stories.

One day they came home with a large bunch of flowers which had been given to them. And while playing in the garden the little girl said:

“The beautiful lady with the bow ought to have her share of the flowers.”

“Certainly,” answered her brother, “because I believe that she is as good as she is beautiful.”Saying this, they laid flowers before the statue, and made a wreath, which the boy placed on her head.

Just then the great poet and magician Virgil, who knew everything about the gods and folletti, whom people used to worship, entered the garden, and said, smiling:

“You have made the offering of flowers to the goddess quite correctly, as they did in old times; all that remains is to make the prayer properly, and it is this. Listen, and learn it.” So he sang:

“Bella dea dell arco!
Bella dea delle freccie!
Delia caccia e dei cani!
Tu vegli colle stelle
Quando il sole va dormir,
Tu colla Luna in fronte,
Cacci la notte meglio del di
Colle tue Ninfe al suono
Di trombe—sei la regina
Dei cacciatori,
Regina della notte!
Tu che siei la cacciatrice
PiÙ potente di ogni
Cacciator—ti prego
Pensa un poco a noi!”

“Lovely Goddess of the bow!
Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
Of all hounds and of all hunting;
Thou who wakest in starry heaven
When the sun has gone to sleep;
Thou with moon upon thy forehead
Who the chase by night preferrest
Unto hunting by the day,
With thy nymphs unto the sound
Of the horn—thou Queen of Hunters!
Queen of night, thyself the huntress,
And most powerful, I pray thee,
Think, although but for an instant,
Upon us who pray unto thee!”

Then Virgil taught them the Scongiurazione, or spell to the goddess Diana:

“Bella dea dell’ arco del cielo,
Delle stelle e della Luna.
La regina piÙ potente
Dei cacciatori e della notte;
A te riccoriamo,
E chiedamo il tuo aiuto
Che tu possa darci
Sempre la buona fortuna!”

“Fair goddess of the rainbow!
Of the stars and of the moon!
The queen all-powerful
Of hunters and the night,
We beg of thee thy aid
To give good fortune to us!”

Then he added the conclusion:

“Se la nostra scongiurazione,
Ascolterai,
E buona fortuna ci darei,
Un segnale a noi lo darei!”

“If thou heedest our evocation,
And wilt give good fortune to us,
Then give us in proof a token.”

And having taught them this, Virgilio departed.

Then the children ran to tell their parents all that had happened, and the latter impressed it on them to keep it all a secret, nor breathe a word or hint of it to anyone. But what was their amazement, when they found early the next morning before the statue a deer freshly killed, which gave them good dinners for many a day—nor did they want thereafter at any time game of all kinds.

There was a neighbour of theirs, a priest, who held in hate all the idolatry of the olden time, and all which did not belong to his religion, [77] and he, passing the garden one day, beheld the statue crowned with roses and (other) flowers. And in a rage, seeing in the street a decaying cabbage, he rolled it in the mud, and threw it, all dripping, at the face of the statue, saying:

“Ecco male bestia d’idolo, questo e l’omaggio che io ti do, gia che il diavolo ti aiuta!”—(Behold, thou vile beast of an idol, this is the homage which I render thee, and may the devil help thee!)

Then the priest heard a voice in the gloom where the trees were thick, which said:

“Bene bene—tu mi hai fatto
L’ offrande—tu avrai
La tua porzione
Di caccia. Aspetta!”“It is well—since thou hast made
Thy offering, thou’lt get thy portion
Of the game—but wait till morning!”

All that night the priest suffered from horrible fancies and fears, and when at last, just before three, he fell asleep, he soon awoke from a nightmare, in which it seemed as if something heavy rested on his chest. And something indeed fell from him and rolled on the ground. And when he rose and picked it up, and looked at it by the light of the moon, he saw that it was a human head, half decayed. [78a]

Another priest who, hearing the cry which he had uttered, entered his room, said:

“I know that head. It is of a man whom I confessed, and who was beheaded three months ago at Siena.”

And three days after this the priest who had insulted the goddess died.

In a single incident this tale recalls that of Falkenstein, one of the synonyms of the wild huntsman in Germany, of whom it is said that as he passed by, a reckless fellow wished him luck, whereupon he heard the words, “Thou hast wished me luck; thou shalt share the game;” whereat there was thrown to him a great piece of carrion. And soon after he died. [78b] But the true plot of this narrative is the conduct of the goddess Diana, who rewards the children for their worship and punishes the priest for his sacrilege.

And, noting the sincere spirit of heathenism which inspires many of these legends, the belief in folletti and fate, and curiously changed forms of the gods of GrÆco-Roman mythology, still existing among the peasants, it is worth inquiring whether, as the very practical Emperor Julian believed, a sincerely religious and moral spirit, under any form, could not be adapted to the progress of humanity? The truth is that as the heathen gods are one and all, to us, as something theatrical and unreal, we think they must have been the same to their worshippers. Through all the Renaissance to the present day the pretended appreciation and worship of classic deities, and with them of classic art and mythology, reminds one of the French billiard-player Berger, who, when desirous of making a very brilliant exhibition of his skill, declared that he would invoke the god of billiards! They may seem beautiful, but they are dead relics, and the worst is that no one realizes now that they ever really lived, moved, and had a being in the human heart. And yet the Italian witch still has a spark of the old fire.

Diana Artemis is known to poets and scholars in certain varied characters thus summed up by Browning:

“I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Through Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace;
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleep,
And every feathered mother’s callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness
Of men; the chaste adore me.”

But to her only believers and worshippers now left on earth—such as Maddalena—Diana is far more than this, for she is the queen of all witchcraft, magic, sorcery, the mistress of all the mysteries, of all deep knowledge, and therefore the greatest of the goddesses—all the rest, in fact, except Venus and Bacchus, who only exist in oaths, being now well-nigh forgotten and unknown to them.