“’Tis an ancient tale that a boy for laughing at Ceres was turned into a stone. For truly too much merriment hardens us all.”—Comment on L. M. Brusonii ‘FacetiÆ.’

In ancient times there lived in Florence a young lord who was very beautiful, and ever merry—and no wonder, because he was Il Dio della Allegria—the God of Mirth—himself.

He was greatly beloved, not only by his friends, but by all the people, because he was always so joyous, kind-hearted, and very charitable.

Every evening this spirit-lord went with his friends to the theatre, or to his parties (al circolo), and the name by which he was known was Eustachio. All awaited with impatience his arrival, for with it the merriment began, and when he came there was a joyous shout of “Evviva il Dio dell’ Allegria!”

It came to pass that in a theatre Eustachio met with a girl, a singer, of such marvellous beauty and wit, that he fell, like one lost, in love with her; which love being reciprocated, he took her to himself, and kept her in a magnificent home, with many fine attendants, and all that heart could desire. In those days every signore in Florence thus had an amante, and there was great rivalry among them as to who should keep his favourite in the best style—con piÙ di lusso. And this lady so beloved by Eustachio, was not only the most beautiful, but the most magnificently entertained of any or all in the city.

Now, one evening there was a grand festival in a palazzo, where there was dancing and gay conversation, Eustachio being as usual present, for all his love for his lady did not keep him from the world, or making mirth for all. And as they diverted themselves or sung to music, there entered a group of young lords, among whom was Virgilio, the great poet. [80]

Then Eustachio rose and began to clap his hands and cry, “Evviva! Long live the great poet!” and those who were at table ceased to eat, and those who were dancing left the dance with their partners, and all in welcome cried, “Evviva il gran poeta!”

Then Eustachio begged Virgilio to sing, and the poet did so, for there was no one who would have refused anything to Eustachio, so winning were his ways.

So Virgil made him the subject of his song, telling in pleasing verse how free he was from care, ever laughing like sunshine, ever keeping himself free from thought, which kills joy and brings sorrow.

And Eustachio, singing and laughing, said that it was because he was ever among friends who banished thought, and so kept away melancholy.

Then Virgil, still softly singing, asked him whether, if he should lose his lady-love, he would not be melancholy for a time, despite the consolations of friends and relations.

Eustachio replied that he would indeed regret the loss, and it would make him sad for a time, but not as a settled grief or incurable sorrow, for that all things pass away, every night hath its morning, after every death new life, when the sea has sunk to its lowest ebb then it rises, and that he who knows this can never know trouble.

Virgil ended the dialogue of song by saying that he who believes he can never be sad knows not what sorrow and trials are, that grief must come some time or other to all, even to the God of Mirth himself, and offered to make a wager of a banquet for all present, if he could not within two weeks’ time cause Eustachio to know what grief, and a melancholy which should seem incurable, was like.

Eustachio assented, and said he would add a thousand gold crowns to the bet.

There was a statue named Peonia to whom Virgil had given life; and going to her, who was now as other women, he said:

“I can give life to a statue, but how to change a human being to marble is beyond my power; I pray thee, tell me how I may turn into an image, such as thou wert, this beautiful girl whom Eustachio adores.”

And Peonia, smiling, replied: “Before thou didst come hither I knew thy thought and thy purpose. Lo! here I have prepared a bouquet of flowers of such intense magic perfume that it will make Eustachio love to madness, as he never did before; but when his mistress inhales the perfume she will become a statue.”And as she bid he did, and placed the bouquet in the lady’s chamber, and when she smelt at it she became a statue, and sat holding the flowers. And Eustachio seeing her sitting there in the dim twilight, knew not the truth, but also smelt of the perfume, and became more in love than man can dream, but when he found that the lady was petrified he was well-nigh mad with grief, nor could anyone console him. And this passed into an iron-like melancholy, nor would he leave the room where the statue sat.

Now, the friends of all, though they well knew that Virgilio had done this, still remembered that he had mighty and mysterious power, and then, thinking over the wager, concluded that he had been in some manner in the affair. So they went to him, praying that he would do something to keep Eustachio from madness or death.

Then Virgilio, the great master, went to the room where Eustachio sat in profound grief by the statue, and said, with a smile, “Caro giovane (My dear youth), I have won my wager, and expect to see thee this evening in the hall at the banquet and dance, bringing the thousand crowns.”

“Dear Virgilio,” answered Eustachio, “go to my parents or friends, and receive thy gold, and assemble them all to banquet or to dance; but do not expect me, for from this room I never more will stir.”

Then Virgilio, gently removing the magic bouquet from the hand of the statue, stepped to the window and threw it down into the street—when lo! the lady flushed into life, and with a laugh asked them what they were all doing there? And then Eustachio burst out laughing for joy, and they danced in a circle round Virgilio. Eustachio paid down the thousand crowns, which Virgil gave as a wedding present to the bride—for of course there was a wedding, and a grander banquet than ever. But though he was the God of Mirth himself, Eustachio never declared after this that he would or could never mourn or think of grief.

What is remarkable in this tale is the confusion between the conception of the hero as a spirit, or the God of Mirth, and his social condition as a young Italian gentleman about town. It is this transition from the god to the popular hero, a mere mortal, which forms the subject of Heine’s “Gods in Exile.”There is another Florentine legend, in which this god appears by the more appropriate name Momo, evidently Momus, in which a young lord who had never laughed in his life is made merry for ever by having presented to him the image of a laughing goblin, which one of his peasants had dug up in a ruin. Whenever he looks at it, he bursts into a roar of laughter, which has the effect of changing his character very much for the better.

What is perhaps most significant in this tale is the name Peonia. PÆonia in classic mythology was Minerva, as a healing goddess. As such, alone, she bears the serpent. Esculapius is termed by Claudian the PÆonio—dragon or snake. In reference to which I find the following in the “Dizionario Mitologico”:

“Peonia, an additional name of Minerva, worshipped . . . as guardian of health. Therefore she has for a tribute the serpent, as emblem of the art of healing. Peonico was a surname of Apollo.”

When medicine was synonymous with magic, Peonia-Minerva would naturally appear as one familiar with occult arts. The changing to a statue and being revived from a statue to life is a very evident symbol of raising from death to life. Æsculapius, who was the male equivalent of Peonia, revived corpses. As Minerva and other deities were familiar to the people as statues, in which there was believed to be a peculiar spirit or life, we can readily understand how any image of a goddess was supposed to be at times revived.

Peonia in our story works her miracle by means of flowers. This, if we are really dealing with an archaically old Italian tradition, is marvellously significant. The poeonia, or peony, or rose de NÔtre Dame, was believed in earliest Roman times to be primus inter magnos, the very first and strongest of all floral amulets, or to possess the greatest power in magic. This was due to its extreme redness, this colour alone having great force to resist the evil eye and sorcery. The most dreaded of all deities among the earliest Etrusco-Latin races was Picus, who appeared as a woodpecker, to which bird he had been changed by Circe. “Nam Picus, etiam rex, ab eadem Circe virga tactus, in volucrem picum evolavit,” as Tritonius declares. When people dug for treasure which was guarded by this dreaded bird, he slew them unless they bore as a protecting amulet the root of the peony. But there is a mass of testimony to prove that the pÆonia, or peony, was magical. Many classic writers, cited by Wolf in his work on amulets, 1692, declare its root drives away phantasms and demons. It was held, according to the same writer, that the same root protected ships from storms and houses from lightning. It is true that this writer evidently confuses the peony with the poppy, but the former was from earliest times strong in all sorcery.

It is also curious that, in old tradition, Pygmalion the sculptor is represented as indifferent to women. Venus punishes him by making him fall in love with a statue. Eustachio, the Spirit of Mirth, declares that the death of his love would not cause him deep grief and for this PÆonia and Virgil change the lady into a marble image. It is the very same story, but with the plot reversed.

Peonia, or peony, regarded as the poppy, since the two very similar plants were beyond question often confused, had a deep significance as lulling to sleep—a synonym for death, a reviving force—and it was also an emblem of love and fertility (Pausanias, II., 10). Peonia lulls the lady to sleep with flowers, that is, into a statue.

I do not regard it as more than probable, but I think it possible that in this story we have one of the innumerable novelle or minor myths of the lesser gods, which circulated like fairy-tales among the Latin people, of which only a small portion were ever written down. That there were many of these not recorded by Ovid, and other mythologists, is very certain, for it is proved by the scraps of such lore which come to light in many authors and casual inscriptions. It requires no specially keen imagination, or active faculty of association, to observe that in this, and many other legends which I have collected and recorded, there are beyond question very remarkable relics of old faith and ancient tradition, drawn from a source which has been strangely neglected, which neglect will be to future and more enlightened antiquaries or historians a source of wonder and regret.

A certain Giovanni Maria Turrini, in a collection of odds and ends entitled “Selva di CuriositÁ,” Bologna, 1674, declares that “the peony, if patients be touched with it, cures them of epilepsy, which results from the influence of the sun, to which this plant is subject, the same effect resulting from coral.” Here we also have the restoring to life or reason, as if from death; that is to say, from a fit or swoon. Truly, the ancients did not know botany as we do, but there was for them far more poetry and wonder in flowers.

Some time after all the foregoing was written I found—truly to my great astonishment—that in a novel by Xavier Montepin there is a student named Virgil, who has a mistress named Pivoine—the title of the book—which word is in Latin PÆonia. This, according to the kind of criticism which is now extensively current, would settle the whole business, and determine “the undoubted original.” I believe it to be a mere chance coincidence of names—strange, indeed, but nothing more. For, in the first place, I am sure that my collector or her informants are about as likely to have read the Sohar, or “Book of Light,” or Hegel’s “CyclopÆdia,” as any novel whatever. But the great part of what is curious in my narrative is not that Virgil loves PÆonia, but that PÆonia-Minerva depresses people to, or raises them from, death by means of flowers. Very clearly in the Italian tale, as in others, Virgil is a physician, and PÆonia is his counterpart, of all which there is no hint in the French novel.

So it once befell that in a very strange Italian tale of Galatea, the Spirit of the White Pebble, there was a narrative agreeing in names with one in a romance by Eugene Sue. But on carefully examining the account of the Virgins of Sen, given by Pomponius Mela (Edition 1526, p. 34, for which purpose I expressly purchased the book), I found that the legend, as known to Maddalena, and also to an old woman whom she did not know, contained the main element as given by Mela, which is not to be found in the French story, namely, the transmigration of the soul or metamorphosis into different forms. The Latin writer states that such enchantresses are called Gallicenas. Now, there was at one time a great infusion of Celtic blood into Northern Italy, and if it was in correspondence with the Gauls, it may possibly be that the story of Sen and Galatea of the White Stone passed all round.

It may be observed, however, that there may linger among French peasants some legend of Virgil and Pivoine, or PÆonia, which Montepin had picked up, and should this be so, doubtless there is some folklorist who can confirm it. This is far more likely than that my authority took the names from a French novel.

The Spirit of Mirth in this story has really nothing in common with Momus, who was, in fact, the God of Sneering, or captious, petty criticism of the kind which objects to great and grand or beautiful subjects, because of small defects. The Virgilian spirit is that of the minor rural gods, or the daughters of the dawn, who were all smiling sub-forms of the laughing Venus. These play the principal part in the mythology of the Tuscan peasantry. This spirit differs from that of Momus as an angel from a devil.

Psellus held that there was a soul in all statues.

That the God of Mirth, or Laughter, is in this tale also a gay young cavalier in Florentine society is paralleled or outdone by Chaucer in the “Manciple’s Tale,” in which Apollo is described as follows:

“Whan Phebus dwelled here in erth adoun,
As oldÉ bookes maken mentioun,
He was the mostÉ lusty bacheler
Of all this world, and eke the best archer. . . .
Thereto he was the semelieste man
That is or was sithen the world began.”

That is, this “flour of bachelerie as well in fredom as in chivalrie” was simply human while here below, having “a wif which that he loved more than his lif.” Chaucer wrote this evidently with conscious humour of the naÏve paradox by which those of his age could thus confuse gods and common mortals, even as a Red Indian vaguely confuses the great beaver or wolf with a human being. It is a curious reflection that, at the present day in Italy, there are believers in the old gods who regard the latter in the same way, as half divine and half like other folk.