Chapter I: Gatti DI San Lorenzo (3)

To any one who fully feels and understands what is meant to be conveyed by this incantation--and a great deal is expressed by passionate singing and a deep thrilling intonation which the text does not give--my translation will appear to be quite accurate. But, in any case, no scholar or poet can deny that there is in it a strange depth of classic feeling, or of old Roman romance, not strained at second-hand through books, but evidently drawn from rude antiquity, which is as fresh in its ring as it is marvellous.

It may be observed as exquisitely curious that in this incantation the peasant who wishes to become a skilled performer on the flageolet _buries it for three days in the ground_, invoking Orpheus by what the spirit suffered in losing Eurydice, and subsequently distinctly declaring that he won or conjured his great musical power from Hades, which means that by the penance and loss, and his braving the terrors of the Inferno, he gained _skill_. This is a mighty element of the myth in all its forms, in all ages, in every country. The burying the instrument for three days probably typifies the three days during which Orpheus was in hell.

It may be observed that Eurydice has become _Auradice_ in the incantation, in which there is probably an intimation of _Aura_, a light wind or zephyr. Air is so naturally associated with music. This, by a very singular coincidence, yet certainly due to mere chance, recalls the invocation to the Spirit of the Air, given by Bulwer in "The Last Days of Pompeii":

"Spectre of the viewless air,
Hear the blind Thessalian's prayer,
By Erichtho's art that shed
Dews of life when life was fled,
By lone Ithaca's wise king,
Who could wake the crystal spring
To the voice of prophecy
_By the lost Eurydice_!
Summoned from the shadowy throng,
At the muse-son's magic song:
Come, wild Demon of the Air,
Answer to thy votary's prayer."

It is indeed very remarkable that in the call to the God of Music, who is in certain wise a spirit of the air, as in that to the Spirit of the Air himself, both are invoked:

"By the lost Eurydice!"

If it could be shown that Bulwer owed this poem and allusion to any ancient work or tradition, I should be tempted to believe that the popular invocation was derived from some source in common with the latter. There is indeed a quaint naive drollery in the word _Aura_dice--"Air-tell!" or "Air-declare!" which adapts it better to the spirit of Bulwer's poem, in which the air is begged to tell something, than to the Orphean or Orphic spell. It may be that the Orphic oracles were heard in the voice of the wind, apropos of which latter there is a strange Italian legend and an incantation to be addressed to all such mystic voices of the night, which almost seems re-echoed in "Lucia":

"Verrano a te sull' aure,
I miei sospiri ardenti,
Udrai nell mar che mormora
L'eco de miei lamenti!"

It is worth observing that this tradition, though derived from the Romagna, was given to me in Florence, and that one of the sculptures on the Campanile represents Orpheus playing the pipe to wild beasts. It is said that in the Middle Ages the walls of churches were the picture-books of the people, where they learned all they knew of Bible legends, but not unfrequently gathered many strange tales from other sources. The sculptors frequently chose of their own will scenes or subjects which were well known to the multitude, who would naturally be pleased with the picturing what they liked, and it may be that Orpheus was familiar then to all. In any case, the finding him in a witch incantation is singularly in accordance with the bas-relief of the Cathedral of Florence, which again fits in marvellously well with Byron's verse:

"Florence! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung,
Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell,
Whilst thou art fair and I am young.

"Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes.
Had bards as many realms as rhymes,
Thy charms might raise new Antonies!"

True it is that _this_ Florence seems to have had dazzling eyes and ringlets curled; and it is on the other hand not true that Orpheus sang his spouse from hell--he only tried to do it. And it is worth noting that one of the commonest halfpenny pamphlets sold in Florence, which is to be found at every public stand, is a poem called "Orpheus and Eurydice." This fact alone renders it less singular that such classical incantations should exist.

The early Christians, notwithstanding their antipathy to heathen symbols, retained with love that of Orpheus. Orpheus was represented as a gentle youth, charming-wild beasts with the music of the pipe, or as surrounded by them and sheep; hence he was, like the Good Shepherd, the favourite type of Christ. He had also gone down into shadowy Hades, and returned to be sacrificed by the heathen, unto whose rites he would not conform.

Miss Roma Lister found traces of Orpheus among the peasantry about Rome, in a pretty tradition. They say that there is a spirit who, when he plays the _zufolo_ or flageolet to flocks, attracts them by his music and keeps them quiet.

"Now there were certain shepherd families and their flocks together
in a place, and it was agreed that every night by turns, each family
should guard the flocks of all the rest. But it was observed that
one mysterious family all turned in and went to sleep when their turn
came to watch, and yet every morning every sheep was in its place.
Then it was found that this family had a spirit who played the
_zufolo_, and herded the flock by means of his music."

The name is wanting, but Orpheus was there. The survival of the soul of Orpheus in the _zufolo_ or pipe, and in the sprite, reveals the mystic legend which indicates his existing to other times. In this it is said that his head after death predicted to Cyrus the Persian monarch that he too would be killed by a woman (_Consule Leonic_, _de var. histor._, lib. i. cap. 17; _de Orphei Tumulo in monte Olympo_, &c., cited by _Kornmann de Miraculis Mortuorum_, cap. 19). The legend of Orpheus, or of a living wife returning from another world to visit an afflicted husband, passed to other lands, as may be seen in a book by Georgius Sabinus, _in Notis ad Metamorp_. _Ovidii_, lib. x. _de descensu Orphei ad Inferos_, in which he tells how a Bavarian lady, after being buried, was so moved by her husband's grief that she came to life again, and lived with him for many years, _semper tamen fuisse tristem ac pallidem_--but was always sad and pale. However, they got on very well together for a long time, till one evening _post vesperi potum_--after he had taken his evening drink--being somewhat angry at the housemaid, he scolded her with unseemly words. Now it was the condition of his wife's coming back to life and remaining with him that he was never to utter an improper expression (_ut que deinceps ipse abstineret blasphemis conviciandi verbis_). And when the wife heard her husband swear, she disappeared, soul and body, and that in such a hurry that her dress (which was certainly of fine old stiff brocade) was found standing up, and her shoes under it. A similar legend, equally authentic, may be found in the "Breitmann Ballads," a work, I believe, by an American author. On which subject the learned Flaxius remarks that "if all the men who swear after their evening refreshments were to lose their wives, widowers would become a drug in the market."

Of the connection between _aura_ as air, and as an _air_ in music, I have something curious to note. Since the foregoing was written I bought in Florence a large wooden cup, it may be of the eleventh century or earlier, known as a _misura_, or measure for grain, formerly called a _modio_, in Latin _modus_, which word has the double meaning of measure for objects solid or liquid, and also for music. Therefore there are on the wooden measure four female figures, each holding a musical instrument, and all with their garments blowing in one direction, as in a high wind, doubtless to signify _aura_, Italian _aria_, air or melody. These madonnas of the four _modes_ are rudely but very gracefully sketched by a bold master-hand. They represent, in fact, Eurydice quadrupled.

There is a spirit known in the Toscana Romagna as _Turabug_. He is the guardian of the reeds or canes, or belongs to them like the ancient Syrinx. There is a curious ceremony and two invocations referring to him. Ivy and rue are specially sacred to him. One of these two invocations is solely in reference to playing the _zufolo_, partly that the applicant may be inspired to play well, and secondly, because the spirit is supposed to be attracted by the sound of the instrument. The very ancient and beautiful idea that divinities are invoked or attracted by music, is still found in the use of the organ in churches.

A large portion of the foregoing on Orpheus formed, with "Intialo," the subject of a paper by me in Italian, which was read in the Collegio Romana at Rome at the first meeting of the Italian _Societa Nazionale per le Tradizioni Popolari Italiani_, in November 1893. Of which society I may here mention that it is under the special patronage of her Majesty Margherita the Queen of Italy, who is herself a zealous and accomplished folklorist and collector--"special patronage" meaning here not being a mere figurehead, but first officer--and that the president is Count Angelo de Gubernatis.

I believe that the establishment of this society will contribute vastly to shake in Italy the old-fashioned belief that to be a person of the _most_ respectable learning it is quite sufficient to be thoroughly acquainted with a few "classic" writers, be they Latin, French, or Italian, and that it is almost a crime to read anything which does not directly serve as a model or a copy whereby to "refine our style." As regards which the whole world is now entering on a new renaissance, the conflict between the stylists and the more liberally enlightened having already begun.

But Orpheus, with the ecclesiastical witch-doctors, was soon turned into a diabolical sorcerer; and Leloyer writes of him: "He was the greatest wizard who ever lived, and his writings boil over with praises of devils and filthy loves of gods and mortals, . . . who were all only devils and witches."

That Eve brought death and sin into the world by eating one apple, or a fig, or orange, or Chinese nectarine, or the fruit of the banana tree, or a pear, a peach, or everything pomological, if we are to believe all translators of the Bible, coincides strongly with the fact that Eurydice was lost for tasting a pomegranate. "Of the precise graft of the espalier of Eden," says the author of the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' "Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus are undecided; the best informed Talmudists have, however . . . pronounced it a Ribstone pippin," Eve being a rib. The ancients were happy in being certain that their apple was one of Granada.

"_Haec fabula docet_," writes our Flaxius, "that mysteries abound in
every myth. Now, whether Orpheus was literally the first man who
ever went to hell for a woman I know not, but well I ween that he was
not the last, as the majority of French novelists of the present day
are chiefly busy in proving, very little, as it seems to me, either
to the credit of their country or of themselves. But there are
others who read in this tale a dark and mysterious forewarning to the
effect that ladies _a la mode_ who fall in love with Italian
musicians or music-masters, and especially those who let themselves
and their fortunes be _sifflees_ (especially the fortunes), should
not be astonished when the fate of Eurydice befalls them. Pass on,
beloved, to another tale!

"'Walk on, amid these mysteries strange and old,
The strangest of them all is yet to come!'"

INTIALO THE SPIRIT OF THE HAUNTING SHADOW

"O ombra che dalla luce siei uscita,
Misuri il passo al Sole, all'uom la vita."

"Umbram suam metuere."

"Badate.
La vostra ombra vi avra fatto paura."

--_Filippo Pananti_.

"There is a feeling which, perhaps, all have felt at times; . . . it
is a strong and shuddering impression which Coleridge has embodied in
his own dark and supernatural verse that Something not of earth is
behind us--that if we turned our gaze backward we should behold that
which would make the heart as a bolt of ice, and the eye shrivel and
parch within its socket. And so intense is the fancy, that _when_ we
turn, and all is void, from that very void we could shape a spectre
as fearful as the image our terror had foredrawn."--BULWER, _The
Disowned_.

The resemblance and the relation of the shadow to the body is so strangely like that of the body to the soul, that it is very possible that it first suggested the latter. It is born of light, yet is in itself a portion of the mystery of darkness; it is the facsimile of man in every outline, but in outline alone; filled in with uniform sombre tint, it imitates our every action as if in mockery, which of itself suggests a goblin or sprite, while in it all there is something of self, darkling and dream-like, yet never leaving us. It is only evident in brightest hours, like a skeleton at an Egyptian feast, and it has neither more nor less resemblance to man than the latter. Hence it came that the strange "dwellers by the Nile" actually loved both shade and death by association, and so it happened that

"Full many a time
They seemed half in love with easeful Death;
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,"

while they made of the cool shadow a portion of the soul itself, or rather one of the seven or eight entities of which man consisted, these being--_Khat_, a body; _Ba_, the spirit; _Khon_, the intelligence; _Khaibit_, _the shadow_; _Ren_, the name; _Ka_, eternal vitality; _Ab_, the heart; and _Sahn_, the mask or mummy.

It is extremely interesting to consider, in connection with this Egyptian doctrine, the fact, illustrated by every writer on Etruscan antiquity, that these ancient dwellers in Italy, when they represented the departed, or the dead, as living again on a tomb, added to the name of the deceased the word _Hinthial_. This I once believed meant simply a ghost or spirit. I had no other association with the name.

I inquired for a long time if there was any such name as _Hintial_ for a ghost among the people, and could not find it. At last my chief agent succeeded in getting from sources to me unknown, but, as in all cases, partly from natives of the Toscana Romagna, or Volterra, and at different times, very full information regarding this mysterious being, which I combine as follows:

INTIALO.

"This is a spirit in human form who shows himself in any shadow, {238} and diverts himself by inspiring terror in a sorcerer, or in any one who has committed a crime. He causes a fearful shadow to be ever present to the man, and addresses him thus:

_Il domone al Stregone_.

"Vile--tu non potrai
Avere mai bene--avrai
Sempre la mia ombra
In tua presenza, e saro
Vendicato . . . {239}

"Tu non potrai giammai
Essere solo, che l'ombra
Mia ovunque andrai
Ti seguira: tu non potrai
Essere mai solo, tu sarai
Sempre in mio potere!

"Al mio incantesimo non avrai
Ne pace ne bene, al mio
Incanto tu tremerai,
Te e tutta la casa dove ti troverai,
Se sei in mezzo alla strada,
Tu tremerai--
Te e tutta la terra!

"Al mio volere tu andrai
Come cane alla pagliaio,
Alla voce del suo maestro;
Tu me vorrai
Vedere, e non mi vedrai,
Mi sentirai--
Vedrai sola la tua ombra.

"Tu sei cattivo e scelerato,
Tu sei avelenato,
Nel cuore e nell anima,
E piu bene non avrai,
Sei avelenato nel cuore,
E nell anima, vai,
Tu siei maladetto;
E il spirito sempre ti seguira
Ovunque tu vada!"

TRANSLATION.

_The Demon to the Sorcerer_.

"Wretch! long lost in wickedness,
Thou shalt ne'er have happiness;
Though to distant lands thou'lt flee,
Still my shadow thou shalt see,
And I will revenged be.

"Solitude thou ne'er shalt know,
Where thou goest my shade shall go,
And wherever thou mayst fly
Still the shadow will be by--
Ne'er alone at any hour,
And for ever in my power.

"By my spell thou ne'er shalt know
Peace or joy on earth below,
At my charm a deadly fear
Shall seize on all men standing near;
Thou shalt tremble in thy home,
Or if thou abroad shouldst roam,
Shivering with fear thou'lt be,
And the earth shall shake with thee.

"At my bidding thou must stir,
And hasten as the vilest cur
Must hasten when his master calls,
And leave his straw amid the stalls;
And if thou wouldst gaze on me,
Still my form thou shalt not see;
Thou shalt feel when I am here,
Feel me in thy deadly fear,
Yet only see thy shadow near.

"Thou art vile and wicked too,
Thou art poisoned through and through;
In thy heart and in thy soul,
Cursedness is in the whole,
In thy soul and in thy heart,
Poison steeped in every part.
Cursed ever! now, depart!
Yet wherever thou shalt flee
I will ever follow thee!

"Then this man will be in terror, and he will ever see the shadow before him by day and by night, and thus he will have no peace, and yet this is all the time the spirit of Intialo.

"Now, when he is thus tormented for some past misdeed, and he feels himself haunted, as it were, by the shadow of the one whom he has wronged, when he finds at last that he is not pursued, indeed, by it, but by Intialo, then he shall repeat the Exorcism:

_Scongiurazione di Intialo_.

"Intialo! Intialo! che quando
Una persona ai preso,
O per seguitare le ingombri
Le ingombri sempre la cammina.

"Intialo! Intialo! se libero
Il passo mi lascerai meglio
Per te sara, se non mi verrai
Lasciare ti faccio sapere
Tu sarai sempre in mio potere.

"Intialo! Intialo! ti faccio sapere,
Se metto in opera
La mia scongiurazione,
Non ti lasciero piu bene avere,
E ogni mi a chiamata
Ti faro correre
Come chane al pagliaio.

"Intialo! Intialo!
Ti faccio sapere
Che tu pensi a fare
Il tuo dovere,
Se ancora mi viene a tormentare
Muso di porco tu possa diventare.

"Intialo! Intialo!
Tu siei furbo e maligno,
Ma io me ne infischio,
Perche io sono di te,
Molto piu maligno.

"Intialo! Intialo! ti prego
Di non mi piu tormentare
Se vuoi aver bene,
Se no ti acquisterai
Delle pene--e questo sara
Il tuo guadagno.

"Intialo! Intialo!
Con tutta la tua furberia,
Non sai ancora
Che io son protetto
Da una bella stregha
Che mi adora.

"Intialo! Intialo!
Se piu ne vuoi sapere
Vieni sta sera,
Vieni a mezza notte,
Viene di dove sei,
Te lo faro vedere,
Vieno sotto 'quel noce
E tu lo vedrai.

"Intialo! Intialo!
La mezza notte in punto,
Noi l'abbiamo,
E ti vedo (vedro) appogiato
Al noce che credi di vedere,
Vedere l'ombra mia,
E vedi l'ombra tua stessa!

"Intialo! Intialo!
Dentro al mio seno
Quattro cose tengo,
Che mi fanno vedere,
E non son veduto,
Ellera, pane,
Sale e ruta,
E la mia buona fortuna.

"Intialo! Intialo!
Non ti voglio dire,
Perche io voglio
Andare a dormire;
Ma solo ti ho fatto
Ti ho fatto vedere
Che non son' in poter tuo,
Ma tu siei in mio potere."

_The Exorcism of Intialo_.

"Intialo! it is known
When thou followest any one,
Be the victim whom he may,
Thou art ever in his way.

"Intialo--hear! if free
Thou wilt leave the road to me,
Better for thee shall it be;
If thou wilt not, from this hour
I will hold thee in _my_ power.

"Intialo! thou shalt learn
That I'm wizard in my turn;
All the power of sorcery
So about thee I will throw--
All around, above, below--
That thou shalt accursed be,
Held in fear and agony,
And as a dog shalt follow me.

"Intialo! thou shalt know
What thou art ere thou canst go;
If thou comest here again
To torment or give me pain,
As thou'dst make a dog of me,
I will make a swine of thee.

"Intialo! sorry cheat,
Filled with hate from head to feet,
Be malignant if you will,
I am more malignant still.

"Intialo! for thy sake
I pray thee no more trouble take
To torment me, for thy gain
Will only be thy greater pain,
For so cursed thou shalt be
That I needs must pity thee.

"Intialo! now, confess
That with all thy craftiness
Thou didst not know what now I tell,
That I am protected well
By a lovely witch, and she
Is mightier far, O fiend! than thee.

"Intialo! ere we go,
If thou more of me wouldst know,
Come at midnight--I shall be
'Neath the witches' walnut tree,
And what I shall make thee see
I trow will be enough for thee.

"Intialo! in that hour
Thou shalt truly feel my power,
And when thou at last shalt ween
That on the witches' tree I lean,
Then to thee it shall be known
That my shadow is thine own.

"Intialo! everywhere
With me magic charms I bear,
Ivy, bread and salt and rue,
And with them my fortune too.

"Intialo! hence away,
Unto thee no more I'll say;
Now I fain would go to sleep,
See that thou this warning keep.
I am not in power of thine,
But thou truly art in mine."

I had the belief, derived from several writers, that _Hinthial_ in Etruscan meant simply a ghost or _revenant_--the apparition of some one dead. But on mentioning my discovery of this legend to Professor Milani, the Director of the Archaeological Museum in Florence, and the first of Etruscan scholars, he astonished me by declaring that he believed the word signified a _shadow_, and that its real meaning in its full significance had apparently been marvellously preserved in this witch-tradition. Too little is known as yet of the old Etruscan language to decide with certainty as to anything in it, but should this opinion of Professor Milani be sustained, it will appear that at least one word of the mysterious tongue has existed till now in popular tradition.

There will be very few of my readers who will not be struck, as I was, with the remarkable resemblance of the terrible curse uttered by Intialo to the invocation in Byron's tragedy of "Manfred." It is like it in form, spirit, and, in many places, even in the very words. That there was, however, no knowledge of the English poem by the Italian witch-poet, and therefore no imitation, is plain from intrinsic evidence. As the question is interesting, I will here give the Incantation from "Manfred":

INCANTATION.

"When the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,
And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answered owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine
With a power and with a sign.

"Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which shall not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gathered in a cloud,
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.

"Though thou see'st me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye,
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turned around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.

"And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse,
And a spirit of the air
Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun
Which shall make thee wish it done.

"From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatched the snake,
For there it coiled as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.

"By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathomed depths of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy,
By the perfection of thine art,
Which passed for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others' pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee, and compel
Thyself to be thy proper hell!

"And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Not to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny,
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee:
O'er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been passed--now wither!"

The Italian poem forms, in its first and second parts, a drama as complete as that of "Manfred," and, as I hope to render clear, one more consistent to the leading idea, or, as critics were wont to say, "more coherent in the unities." This idea in the one, as in the other, is that of a powerful _sorcerer_ assailed by a fiend in the form of remorse, and that with the most aggravating and insulting terms of contempt. In "Manfred" the persecutor tells his victim that he shall be his own hell, for that of all poisons his own evil heart is the worst. The Italian, more direct and less metaphysical still, alludes, in the accusation by the spirit, to no other punishment save that of conscience, and declares the magician to be poisoned through and through in himself:

"Tu sei cattivo e scelerato,
Tu sei avvelenato
Nel cuore e nell anima,"

and bids him go forth to be for ever pursued by the avenger.

Byron's poem is entirely based on sorcery, and is intended to set forth the tremendous mental struggles of a mind which has risen above mankind with supernatural power, which assails him with remorse. In the first place he simply goes to sleep; in the grand finale he resists, like Don Juan, or, as the saying is, "dies game"--"only this, and nothing more"--leaving all idea of an end, object, moral, or system, entirely in the dark. "Manfred" is merely dramatic for the sake of _stage effect_, and only excellent in impressing us with the artistic skill of the author. Its key is art for the sake of art, and effect on anybody, no matter who. Within this limit it is most admirable.

In both the Italian and English poems the one persecuted makes his strong point of departure from the discovery or knowledge that the persecuted is not one whom he has injured, but simply a mocking and tormenting sprite. Thus the former text declares that when he finds he is pursued simply by Intialo, the shadow, which we may here translate "his own imagination," he rallies with a tremendous counter-curse in which far more is meant than meets the eye. The grand mission of the _magus_ or sorcerer in all the occult lore of all antiquity, whether he appear as Buddha or any other man of men, is to conquer all enemies by tremendous power won by penance or by iron _will_. A favourite means of tormenting the enemy or fiend is to awaken the conscience of the magician, or, what is the same thing, to tempt him to sin, as Satan did Christ. But even conscience loses its power when we feel that the foe is exaggerating our sins, and only urging them for torment's sake, and especially when these sins are of a kind which from a _certain_ standpoint or code, are not sins at all.

And here we are brought to a subject so strange and witch-like that it is difficult to discuss or make clear. It is evident enough in "Manfred" that the great crime was the hero's forbidden love for his sister Astarte. This it is which crushes him. But it does not appear from the Italian (save to those deeply learned in the darker secrets of sorcery) why or how it is that the one persecuted so suddenly revives and defies the spirit, turning, as it were, his own power against him. In explaining this, I do not in the least conjecture, guess, or infer anything; I give the explanation as it was understood by the narrator, and as confirmed by other legends and traditions. It is this:

Michelet, in _La Sorciere_, which amid much lunacy or folly contains many truths and ingenious perceptions, has explained that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages was a kind of mad despairing revolt against the wrongs of society, of feudalism, and the Church. It was in very truth the precursor of Protestantism. Under the name of religion conscience had been abused, and artificial sins, dooming to hell, been created out of every trifle, and out of almost every form of natural instincts. The reaction from this (which was a kind of nihilism or anarchy), was to declare the antithetic _excess_ of free will. One of the forms of this revolt was the belief that the greatest sorcerers were born (_ex filio et matre_) from the nearest relations, and that to dare and violate all such ties was to conquer by daring will the greatest power. It was the strongest defiance of the morality taught by the Church, therefore one of the highest qualifications for an iron-willed magician. It is specially pointed out in the legend of Diana that she began by such a sin, and so came to be queen of the witches; and the same idea of entire emancipation or illumination, or freedom from all ties, is the first step to the absolute free will which constitutes the very basis of all magic. This, which is repugnant to humanity, was actually exalted by the Persian Magi to a duty or religious principle, and it was the same in Egypt as regarded "first families." The sorcerer pursued by Intialo bases all his power to resist on the mere fact that he is beloved by a beautiful witch. This is the Astarte of the Italian drama, or a sister--the terrible tie which shows that a man is above conscience, and free from all fear of the powers that be, whether of earth or air. By it his triumph is complete. He surmounts the accusation of being without morals by utterly denying their existence from a higher or illuminated point of view. The _magus_ claims to rank with the gods, and if a divinity _creates_ mankind as his children, and then has a child by a woman, he is in the same state as the sorcerer, according to wizards.

If any reproach attaches to the employment of such an element in poetry, then Byron and Shelley are far more to blame than the Italian witch-poet, who veiled his allusion with much greater care than they did, and who had the vast excuse of _sincere belief_, while their highest aim was mere art. The wizard-poet has his heart in this faith, as in a religion, and he is one with his hero. Manfred is at best only a broken-down magician who presents a few boldly dramatic daring traits--the Italian sorcerer, who is far more defiant and fearless, conquers. "I am more malignant than thou art," is a terrible utterance; so is the tone of affected pity for the baffled tormentor, in which we detect a shade of sarcasm based on overwhelming triumph. This feeling, be it observed, progresses, _crescendo forte_, gradually and very artistically, from the first verse to the last. Intialo has threatened to make the victim a sorry cur who comes at a call; the sorcerer replies that he will make "a swine's snout" of Intialo. Finally, he dares the fiend to meet him at midnight at the great Witches' Sabbat, at the dread walnut-tree of Benevento. Here the threats reach an ingenious and terrible climax, though the form in which they are expressed is only quite clear to the initiated. The sorcerer says, "When thou thinkest that thou see'st my shadow thou wilt behold thine own," or in other words, "You who have sought to torment me by a _shadow_ shall yourself be mocked by finding that you are only mine." This climax of daring the fiend to meet him at Benevento, at the tremendous and terrible rendezvous of all the devils, witches, and sorcerers, and then and there trying conclusions with him in delusion and magic, or a strife of shadows, while leaning against the awful tree itself, which is the central point of the Italian Domdaniel, is magnificently imagined.

In Goethe's "Faust," as in Byron's "Manfred," the hero is a magician, but he is not in either true to the name or character. The great _magus_ of early ages, even like the black Voodoo of America, had it clearly before him all the time that his mission or business, above all things, was to develop an indomitable _will_ superior to that of men or spirits. Every point is gained by _force_, or by will and penance. In real sorcery there is no such thing as a pact with a devil, and becoming his slave after a time. This is a purely later-Roman invention, a result of the adoption of the mixture of Jewish monotheism and Persian dualism, which formed the Catholic Church. In Goethe's "Faust" we have the greatest weakness, and an extreme confusion of character. The conclusion of the tale is contradictory or absurd, and the difficulty is solved with the aid of a _Deus ex machina_. The hero is a sorcerer, and _there is not a trace of true sorcery or magianism or tremendous will and work in the whole drama_. Beautiful things are said and done, but, take it for all in all, it is a grand promenade which leads to nothing. {251}

In the Italian legend, brief and rude as it is, there appears a tremendous power worked out with great consistency. The demon or spirit, intent on causing remorse or despair (_ad affretare il rimorso_), threatens the sorcerer with terrible maledictions. And these words, if we regard their real meaning and spirit, have never been surpassed in any poem.

And we should note here that the Italian sorcerer who subdues the devil by simple will and pluck is no Manfred or Faust drawn from the religious spirit of the Middle Ages. He belongs to the Etruscan age, or to that of the ancient Magi; he meets malediction with malediction, spell with spell, curse with curse, injury with injury, sarcasm and jeer with the same; he insults the devil, calling him his slave:

"Perche io sono di te--molto piu maligno."

Until in the end they change parts, and the demon becomes the one tormented. Therefore there is in this legend, with all its rudeness, a conception which is so grand, as regards setting forth the possible power of man, and the _eritis sicut deus_ of modern science, that it is in unity and fulness far beyond any variant of the same subject.

That this is of great antiquity is clear, for out of this enchanted forest of Italian witchcraft and mystical sorcery there never yet came anything, great or small, which was not at least of the bronze, if not of the neolithic age.

Truly, when the chief character in a tradition of the old Etruscan land bears an Etruscan name, or that of a shadow called a shadow, we may well conclude that it is not of yesterday. So all things rise and bloom and pass away here on this earth to winter and decay, and are as phantoms which

"Come like shadows, so depart."

For a last word, "Manfred" and "Faust" are only works of art, intended to "interest" or amuse or charm the reader, and as such they are great. They are simply dramas or show-pieces, which also give a high idea of the artistic skill of their writers. "Intialo" sets forth the great idea of the true sorcerer, in which they both _fail_, and carries it out logically to a tremendous triumph. It is the very quintessence of all heresies, and of the first great heresy, _eritis sicut deus_.

There will not be wanting one or two critics of the low kind who take their hints from the disavowals of the author to declare that his book is just what it is not, who will write that I think I have discovered a better poet than Keats in Marietta Pery, and a far greater than Goethe or Byron in the unknown author of the invocation to "Intialo." But all that I _truly mean_ is that the former is nearer to old tradition, and more succinct than the English bard--"only this and nothing more"--while in "Intialo" we have given, as no one ever expressed it, the true ideal of the magician who, overcoming all qualms of conscience, whether innate or suggested, and trampling under foot all moral human conventions, rises to _will_, and victory over all enemies, especially the demons of the threshold. As a poem, I no more claim special merit for it than I would for Marietta's; {253} indeed, to the very considerable number of "highly cultivated" people who only perceive poetry in form and style, and cannot find it in the grandest conceptions unless they are elegantly expressed, what I have given in this connection will not appear as poetry at all.

CAIN AND HIS WORSHIPPERS THE SPELL OF THE MIRROR--THE INVOCATION TO CAIN--THE WITCH-HISTORY OF CAIN AND ABEL

"Rusticus in Luna
Quem sarcina deprimit una,
Monstrat per spinas
Nulli prodesse rapinas."

--ALEXANDER NECKHAM, A.D. 1157.

This is, for reasons which I will explain anon, one of the most curious traditions which have been preserved by the Tuscan peasantry. I had made inquiry whether any conjuring by the aid of a mirror existed--"only this and nothing more"--when, some time after, I received the following:

LA SCONGIURAZIONE DELLO SPECCHIO.
_When one wishes to enchant a lover_.

"Go at midnight when there is a fine full moon, and take a small mirror, which must be kept in a box of a fine red colour, and at each of the four corners of the box put a candle with a pin, or with a pin in its point, and observe that two of the pins must have red heads, and two black, and form a cross, and note that every candle must have two tassels hanging from it, one red and one black.

"And within the box first of all put a good layer of coarse salt, and form on the salt a ring or wreath of incense, and in the middle of this a cross of cummin, and above all put the small mirror. Then take the photograph of your lover, but not the real photograph but the negative, because it must be on a plate of glass (_lastra di vetro_). Then take some hairs of the lover and join them to the photograph (_sono uniti dalla parte del quore_), and then take a fine sprig of rue.

"And with all this nicely arranged in the box, take a boat and sail out to sea; and if a woman works the spell she must take three men with her only, and if a man three women and no other person. And they must go forth at an instant when the moon shines brightly (_risplende bene_) on the mirror. Then hold the left hand over the mirror, and hold up the rue with the right. Then repeat the following: {255}

INCANTESIMO.

"Luna! Luna! Luna!
Tu che siei tanto bella!
E nel tuo cerchio rachiude
Un si pessimo sogetto
Rachiude Chaino che per gelosia
Uccise il proprio fratello.

"Ed io che per la gelosia
Del mio amante non ho potuto
Ne bere e ne mangiare,
Ne colle amiche
Non posso conversare,
Io l'amo tanto, tanto,
E non sono corrisposta,
Quanto lo vorrei e per la sua
La sua fredezza io ne sono
Tanto gelosa non so qual' malarono
Quale malarono io commetterei,
Vado a letto non passo riposare,
Mi viene visioni che
Il mio amante mi debba ingannare.

"Luna, Luna, mia bella Luna!
Che tanto bella siei e ben' risplende,
Ti prego volere pregare per me
_Chaino_ che per gelosia
Uccise il proprio fratello,
Ed io vorrei punire il mio amante,
Ma non farlo morire
Ma pero farlo soffrire,
Che non abbia mai bene
Ne giorno, ne notte,
Non possa ne bene ne mangiare.
E la notte non possa riposare,
E Chaino col suo fascio,
Suo fascio, di pruini,
Il mio amante dal su'letto
Puo le fare, alzare
E alla casa mia
Farlo presto ritornare!

"Chaino! Chaino! Chaino!
Per tre volte io ti chiamo.
Ti chiamo ad alta voce,
In un punto dove si trova,
Soltanto che cielo e aqua,
E le due mie compagne.

"Chaino! per la gelosia
Che provarti tu per il tuo fratello!
Provo io per il mio amante,
E vorrei a me farlo ritornare,
Per non allontanarsi mai piu.

"Tu che dal alto del cielo
Tutto vedi--questa scatola
E bene preparata e tutte e quattro
Le candele o accese, tu puoi guardare,
Puoi guardare questo specchio,
E se tre parole pronunzierai
Tutti i pruini che ai
Nell' fascio delle legne che adosso,
Sempre porti potrai,
Potrai farli passare
Nel corpo, e nel cuore
Del mio amante,
Che non possa dormire e sia
Costretto a vestirsi,
E venire a casa mia,
Per non andarsene mai piu.

"Con questo ramo di ruta
Lo bagno nel mare,
E bagno le mie due compagne
Che pronunzierrano queste parole
Tale [secondo il nome] colla ai uta
Di Chaino vai dalla tua amante
Per non lasciarla mai piu.

"Se questa grazia mi fai
Fai alzare un forte vento,
E poi spengere le candele.
Chaino! Chaino! Chaino!"

THE INVOCATION.

"Moon! O moon! O moon!
Thou who art always fair,
Yet holdest in thy ring
One of such evil name,
Because thou holdest Cain;
Cain who from jealousy
His own born brother slew.

"I too through jealousy
Of one whom I still love
Can neither drink nor eat,
Nor even talk with friends,
I love so much--so much--
Yet am not loved again
As I would fain be loved.
Through his indifference I
So jealous have become,
I do not know what sin
I would not now commit;
I cannot sleep at night
For dreams in which I see
Him faithless unto me.

"Moon, moon, O beauteous moon!
As thou art fair and bright,
I pray thee, pray for me;
_Cain_ who from jealousy
Slew his own brother born,
As I would punish well
The one whom I yet love,
Yet would not cause his death,
So may he suffer thus:
May suffering be his lot
By day as in the night,
May he not eat or drink,
Nor may he sleep at night!

"May Cain who bears the bunch
Upon his back, of thorns,
Stand by my lover's bed,
And make him rise from sleep
And hasten to my home.

"O Cain! O Cain! O Cain!
Three times I call to thee,
Call with my loudest voice,
Just as I find myself
Between the sea and sky,
And my two friends with me.

"Cain, by the jealousy
Which once thy brother caused,
And which I now endure,
For him whom still I love,
Make love return to me
And never leave me more.

"Thou who from heaven on high
Seest all things, here behold
This casket well prepared!
The mystic tapers four
All lighted, look on them!
Then in this mirror look.
Then if thou wilt but speak
_Three words_--then all the thorns
Which on thy back thou bear'st,
All in a bundle bound,
Will pass into the life,
The body and the heart
Of him whom yet I love,
So that he sleep no more,
And be compelled to rise,
Compelled to clothe himself,
And hasten to my home,
Never to leave me more.

"Now, with this branch of rue,
Which I dip in the sea,
I sprinkle both my friends,
That they may speak these words:
That ---, {259a} by the aid
Of Cain shalt seek thy love,
And never leave her more.

"If thou wilt grant me this,
Cause a high wind to blow,
Extinguishing the lights.
O Cain! O Cain! O Cain!"

Before proceeding further, I would explain that the use of a photograph, which must be a negative on glass, instead of being, as was suggested to me, a modern interpolation, is, strangely enough, a proof of the antiquity of the rite. In the old time, a picture or portrait painted in transparent colour on glass was held up to the moon that its rays might pass through it and enchant the subject. And among the Romans, when one had a portrait of any one cut on diaphanous stone, it was used in the same way. I had in my possession once such a portrait-gem, {259b} and a fine needle-hole had been bored through the right eye so as to blind the original of the likeness. And I had a friend who lived in Russia, who discovered that a person who hated him had obtained his photograph, and pricked holes with a very fine needle in the eyes to blind him. The negative of a photograph on glass would very naturally occur as a substitute for a picture. But what is most important is that this mention of the translucent negative proves fully that the whole ceremony, in its minutest detail, has actually been preserved to this day, and that the incantation, long as it is, exists as I have given it, since every line in it corresponds to the rite. And as I know that it was gathered by a witch and fortune-teller among others, and carefully compared and collated, I am sure that it is authentic and traditional.

Fifty pages are devoted by the Rev. T. Harley in his "Moon Lore" to the subject of the Man in the Moon, and since the book appeared in 1885 there have been great additions to the subject. This human being is declared by myths found in India, and especially among the Oriental gypsies, in Ireland, Borneo, Greenland, and South America, to be a man who is punished by imprisonment above for incest with his sister the sun. As he wanders for ever over the heavens, just as gypsies wander on earth, they claim him for their ancestor, and declare that Zin-gan (or gypsy) is derived from two words meaning sun and moon. _Kam_, the sun, has been varied to _kan_, and in gypsy the moon is called _chone_, which is also _t-chen_, _chin_, or _sin_. But the point lies in this, that Cain was condemned to be a "a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth," which gives much apparent strength to the idea that Cain, whether Shemitic or Aryan, was, for a great crime, or as chief of sinners, imprisoned in the moon.

This sufferer, in different legends, has been represented as a Sabbath-breaker, as Judas Iscariot, as Isaac, and many more transgressors, almost always with a _bunch_ or _bush_ of _thorns_, for which there has been literally no real explanation whatever. This I will now investigate, and, I think, clearly explain.

Dante in two places speaks of the Man in the Moon as Cain, and as if it were a very popular legend (_Inferno_, xx. 123):

"Ma vienne omai che gia tiene 'l confine
D'ambedue gli emisperi, e tocca l'onda
Sotto Sibilia, Caino e le spine
E gia iernotte fu la Luna tonda."

"But now he comes who doth the borders hold
Of the two hemispheres, and drive the waves
Under the sibyl, Cain, with many thorns.
And yesternight the moon was round and full;
Take care that it may never do thee harm
At any time when in the gloomy wood."

This twentieth canto is devoted to the sorcerers in hell, and ends with allusion to the full moon, the sibyl, and Cain, as allied to witchcraft, prediction, and sin. When the moon is full it is also "high tides" with the witches, now as of yore:

"Full moon, high sea,
Great man shalt thou be:
Red dawning, cloudy sky,
Bloody death shalt thou die."

Dante again mentions Cain in the moon, in the _Paradiso_, ii. 50:

"Ma ditemi, che con li segni lui
Dio questo corpo, che laggiuso in terra
Fan di _Cain_ favoleggiare altrui?"

"But tell me now what are the gloomy marks
Upon this body, which down there on earth
Make people tell so many tales of Cain?"

To which Beatrice replies by a mysterious physical explanation of the phenomenon, advising him to take three _mirrors_ and observe how the moon is reflected from one to the other, and that in this manner the _formal principio_, or first creative power, passes from light to darkness. The reader will here remember that with the witches the _mirror_ is specially devoted to conjuring Cain.

It is worth noting that a _spechietto_, or small looking-glass, was specially (Barretti) "a little mirror placed at the bottom of a jewel casket."

I would now note that the _thorns_ which Cain carries signify, not only in modern Italian, but in old Roman sorcery, the sting of hatred and of jealousy. It is a most apparent and natural simile, and is found from the crown of thorns on Christ to the Voodoo sorcery in Western America. Miss Mary Owen knew a black girl in Missouri who, as a proof of being Christianised, threw away the thorn which she kept as a fetish to injure an enemy. But in early times the thorn was universally known as symbolical of sin, just as Cain was regarded as the first real sinner. Therefore the two were united. Menzel tells us in his _Christliche Symbolik_ (Part I. p. 206) that it is a legend that "there were no thorns before the Fall; they first grew with sin, therefore thorns are a symbol of the sorrow or pain which came from sin." Of all of which there is a mass of old German myths and legends, which I spare the reader, for I have endeavoured in this comment to avoid useless myth-mongering in order to clearly set forth the connection between Cain, his thorns, and the moon.

That the conjuring the moon with a mirror is very ancient indeed appears from the legend drawn from classic sources, which is thus set forth in "A Pleasant Comedie called Summer's Last Will and Testament. Written by Thomas Nash. London, 1600":

"In laying thus the blame upon the Moone
Thou imitat'st subtill Pythagoras,
Who what he would the People should beleeve,
The same he wrote with blood upon a Glasse,
And turned it opposite 'gainst the New Moone,
Whose Beames, reflecting on it with full force,
Shew'd all those lines to them that stood behinde,
Most pleynly writ in circle of the Moone,
And then he said: 'Not I, but the newe Moone
Fair Cynthia persuades you this and that.'"

In the "Clouds" of Aristophanes the same idea is made into a jest, in which Strepsiades thus addresses Socrates:

"_Strepsiades_. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and then draw
down the moon by night, and then shut her up in a round helmet-case
_like a mirror_, and then keep watching her--

_Socrates_. What good would that do you, then?

_Strepsiades_. What! If the moon were not to rise any more
anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

_Socrates_. Because what?

_Strepsiades_. Because the money is lent on interest." {262}

These instances could be multiplied. What I have given are enough to show the antiquity of the conjuration; and I also venture to declare that any Italian scholar who is familiar with these formulas of sorcery will admit that, making all due allowance for transmission among peasants, the language, or words, or turns of expression in this incantation denote great antiquity.