Part 21

Dante had no wish to level the spiritual windmills that lay in his path: he left them standing, only seeking a proper reason for their being there. Therefore he did not answer himself in the words of the Tuscan proverb: "Chi crede in sorte, non crede in Dio;" but, on the contrary, tried to prove that the two beliefs might be perfectly reconciled. "He whose knowledge transcends all things" (is the reply) "fashioned the heavens, and gave unto them a controlling force in such wise that each part shines upon each, distributing equally the light. Also to worldly splendours he ordained a general minister, and captain, who should timely change the tide of vain prosperity from race to race and from blood to blood. Why these prevail, and those languish, according to her ruling, is hidden, like the snake in the grass; your knowledge has in her no counterpart; she provides, judges, and pursues her governance, as do theirs the other gods. Her permutations have no truce, necessity makes her swift; for he is swift in coming who would have his turn. This is she who is upbraided even by those who should praise her, giving her blame wrongfully and ill-repute; but she continues blessed, and hearkens not; glad among the other primal creatures, she revolves her sphere, and being blessed, rejoices."

The peasants, the _pagani_ of Italy, did not give their name for nothing to the entire system of antiquity. They were its last, its most faithful adherents, and to this day their inmost being is watered from the springs of the antique. They have preserved old-world thoughts as they have preserved old-world pots and pans. In the isolated Tuscan farm you will be lighted to your bed by a woman carrying an oil lamp identical in form with those buried in Etruscan tombs; on the Neapolitan hill-side a girl will give you to drink out of a jar not to be distinguished from the amphorae of Pompeii. A stranger hunting in the campagna may often hear himself addressed with the "Tu" of Roman simplicity. The living Italian people are the most interesting of classical remains. Even their religion has helped to perpetuate practices older than Italy. How is it possible, for instance, to see the humble shrine by vineyard or maize field, with its posy of flowers and its wreath of box hung before the mild countenance of some local saint, without remembering what the chorus says to Admetus: "Deem not, O king, of the tomb of thy wife as of the vulgar departed; rather let it be kept in religious veneration, a cynosure for the way-faring man. And as one climbs the slanting pathway, these will be the words he utters: 'This was she who erewhile laid down her life for her husband; now she is a saint for evermore. Hail, blessed spirit, befriend and aid us!' Such the words that will be spoken."

Can it be doubted that the Catholic honour of the dead--nay, even the cult of the Virgin, which crept so mysteriously into the exercise of Christian worship--had birth, not in the councils of priests and schoolmen, but in the all-unconscious grafting by the people of Italy of the new faith upon an older stock?

With this persistency of thought, observable in outward trifles, as in the deepest yearnings of the soul, it would be strange if the Italian mind had ceased to occupy itself with the old wonder about fate. The folk-lore of the country will show the mould into which the ancient speculations have been cast, and in how far these have undergone change, whether in the sense of assimilating new theories or in that of reverting to a still earlier order of ideas.

They tell at Venice the story of a husbandman who had set his heart on finding _one who was just_ to be sponsor to his new-born child. He took the babe in his arms and went forth into the public ways to seek _El Giusto_. He walked and walked and met a man (who was our Lord) and to him he said, "I have got this son to christen, but I do not wish to give him to any one who is not just. Are you just?" To him the Lord replied, "But I do not know if I am just." Then the husbandman went a little further and met a woman (who was the Madonna), and to her he said, "I have this son to christen, but I only wish to give him to one who is just. Are you just?" "I know not," said the Madonna; "but go a little further and you will meet one who is just." After that, he went a little further, and met another woman who was Death. "I have been sent to you," he said, "for they say you are just. I have a child to christen, and I do not wish to give him except to one who is just. Are you just?" "Why, yes; I think I am just," said Death; "but let us christen the babe and afterwards I will show you if I am just." So the boy was christened, and then this woman led the husbandman into a long, long room where there were an immense number of lighted lamps. "Gossip," said the man, who marvelled at seeing so many lamps, "what is the meaning of all these lights?" Said Death: "These are the lights of all the souls that are in the world. Would you like just to see, Gossip? That is yours, and that is your son's." And the husbandman, who saw that his lamp was going out, said, "And when there is no more oil, Gossip?" "Then," replied Death, "one has to come to me, for I am Death." "Oh! for charity," said the husbandman, "do let me pour a little of the oil out of my son's lamp into mine!" "No, no, Gossip," said Death, "I don't go in for that sort of thing. A just one you wished to meet, and a just one you have found. And now, go you to your house and put your affairs in order, for I am waiting for you."[1]

In this parable, we see a severe fatalism, which is still more oriental than antique.

... God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives That lamp due measure of oil....

The Mahomedans say that there are trees in heaven on each of whose leaves is the name of a human being, and whenever one of these leaves withers and falls, the man whose name it bears dies with it. The conception of human life as of something bound up and incorporated with an object seemingly foreign, lies at the very root of elementary beliefs. In an Indian tale the life of a boy resides in a gold necklace which is in the heart of a fish; in another a woman's life is contained in a bird: when the bird is killed, the woman must perish. In a third a prince plants a tree before he goes on a journey, saying as he does so, "This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and fresh, then know that it is well with me. When you see the tree fade in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case. When you see the whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone."

According to a legend of wide extension--it is known from Esthonia to the Pyrenees--all men were once aware of the hour of their death. But one day Christ went by and saw a man raising a hedge of straw. "That hedge will last but for a short while," He said; to which the man answered, "It will be good for as long as I live; that it should last longer, matters not;" and forthwith Christ ordained that no man should thereafter know when he should die.

The southern populations of Italy cling to the idea that from the moment of a man's birth his future lot is decided, whether for good or evil hap, and that he has but little power of altering or modifying the irrevocable sentence. There are lucky and unlucky days to be born on; lucky and unlucky circumstances attendant on an entry into the world, which affect all stages of the subsequent career. He who is born on the last day of the year, will always arrive late. It is very unfortunate to be born when there is no moon. Anciently the moon was taken as symbol both of Fortune, and of Hecate, goddess of Magic. The Calabrian children have a song: "Moon, holy moon, send me good fortune; thou shining, and I content, lustrous thou, I fortunate." Also at Cagliari, in Sardinia, they sing: "Moon, my moon, give me luck; give me money, so I may amuse myself; give it soon, so I may buy sweetmeats." The changing phases of the moon doubtless contributed to its identification with fortune; "Wind, women, and fortune," runs the Basque proverb, "change like the moon." But yet more, its influence over terrestrial phenomena, always mysterious to the ignorant observer and by him readily magnified to any extent, served to connect it with whatever occult, unaccountable power was uppermost in people's minds.

In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight; the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public lotteries are of almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books, and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto."

The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is strongest in those countries where there is the least control over Nature. The relations between man and Nature affect not only the social life, but also the theology and politics of whole races of men. A learned Armenian who lives at Venice, came to London for a week in June to see some English friends. It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the white cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I asked myself" (he wrote, describing his experiences) "how it was possible that a great nation should exist behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him that in the continual but, in the long run, victorious struggle with an ungenial climate might lie the secret of the development of that great nation. Different are the lands where the soil yields its increase almost without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole is swallowed up by flood or earthquake.

The songs of luck, or rather of ill-luck, nearly all come from the Calabrias. There are hundreds of variations upon the monotonous theme of predestined misery. "In my mother's womb I began to have no fortune; my swaddling clothes were woven of melancholy; when we went to church, the woman who carried me died upon the way, and the godfather who held me at the font said, 'Misfortunate art thou born, my daughter!'" Here is another: "Hapless was I born, and with a darkened moon; never did a fair day dawn for me. Habited in weeds, and attended by cruel fortune, I sail upon a sea of grief and trouble." Or this: "Wretched am I, for against me conspired heaven and fortune and destiny; and the four elements decreed that never should I prosper: earth would engulf me; air took away my breath; water flowed with my tears; fire burnt this poor heart." Again: "I was created under an ill-star; never had I an hour's content. By my friends I saw myself forsaken, and chased away by my mistress. The heavens moved against me, the stars, the planets, and fortune; if there is no better lot for me, open thou earth and give me sepulchre!" The luckless wretch imagines that the sea, even where it was deepest, dried up at his birth; and the spring dried up for that year, and all the flowers that were in the world dried up; and the birds went singing: "I am the most luckless wight on earth!" Human friendship is a delusion: "I was the friend of all, and a true friend--for my friends I reckoned life as little." But he is not served so by others: "Wretched is he who trusts in fortune; sad is he who hopes in human friendship! Every friend abandons thee at need, and walks afar from thy sorrow." No good can come to him who is born for ill: "When I was born, it was at sea, amongst Turks and Moors. A gipsy asked to tell my fortune; 'Dig,' she said, 'and thou shalt find a great treasure.' I took the spade in my hand to dig, but I found neither silver nor gold. Traitress gipsy who deceived me! Who is born afflicted, dies disconsolate."

So continues the long tale of woe; childish in part, but withal tragic by other force of iteration. This song of Nardo may be taken as its epitome:

The heavens were overcast when I was born; No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn, E'en from my cradle, all forlorn was I; No luck for me, no, grief for ever nigh. I loved--my love was paid by fraud and scorn; No luck for me, no, luckless and forlorn. The stars and moon were darkened in the sky, No luck for me, no, naught but misery!

The Calabrians have a house-spirit called the _Auguriellu_, who appears generally dressed as a little monk, and who has his post especially by babies' cradles: he is thought to be one of the less erring fallen angels, and is harmless and even beneficent if kindly treated. The "house-women" (_Donne di casa_) of Sicily are also in the habit of watching the sleep of infants. But in no part of Italy does there seem to be any distinct recollection of the Parcae. In Greece, on the other hand, the three dread sisters are still honoured by propitiatory rites, and they figure frequently in the folk-lore of Bulgaria and Albania. A Bulgarian song shows them weaving the destiny of the infant Saviour. In M. Auguste Dozon's collection of Albanian stories, there is one called "The sold child," which bears directly on the survival of the Parcae. "There was an old man and woman who had no children" (so runs the tale). "At last at the end of I do not know how many years, God gave them a son, and their joy was without bounds that the Lord had thus remembered them. Two nights had passed since the birth, and the third drew nigh, when the Three Women would come to assign the child his destiny.

"That night it was raining so frightfully that nobody dared put his nose out of doors, lest he should be carried away by the waters and drowned. Nevertheless, who should arrive through the rain but a Pasha, who asked the old man for a night's lodging. The latter, seeing that it was a person of importance, was very glad; he put him in the place of honour at the hearth, lit a large fire, gave him to eat what he could find; and putting aside certain objects, which he set in a corner, he made room for the Pasha's horse--for this house was only half covered in, a part of the roof was missing.

"The Pasha, when he was warmed and refreshed, had nothing more to do but to go to sleep; but how can one let himself go to sleep when he has I know not how many thousand piastres about him?

"That night, as we have said already, the Three Women were to come and apportion the child his destiny. They came, sure enough, and sat down by the fire. The Pasha, at the sight of that, was in a great fright, but he kept quiet, and did not make the least sound.

"Let us leave the Pasha and busy ourselves with these women. The first of the three said, 'This child will not live long; he will die early.' The second said, replying to her who had just spoken, 'This child will live many years, and then he will die by the hand of his father.' Finally the third spoke as follows: 'My friends, what are you talking about? This child will live sufficiently long to kill the Pasha you see there, rob him of his authority, and marry his daughter.'"

How the Pasha froze with fear when he heard that sentence, how he persuaded the old man to let him have the child under pretence of adopting him, how he endeavoured by every means, but vainly, to put him out of the way, and how, in the end, he fell into an ambush he had prepared for his predestined successor, must be read in M. Dozon's entertaining pages. Though not precisely stated, it would seem that the mistaken predictions of the two first women arose rather from a misinterpretation of the future than from complete ignorance. The boy but narrowly escaped the evils they threatened. In Scandinavian traditions a disagreement among the Norns is not uncommon. In one case, two Norns assign to a newborn child long life and happiness, but the third and youngest decrees that he shall only live while a lighted taper burns. The eldest Norn snatches the taper, puts it out, and gives it to the child's mother, not to be kindled till the last day of his life.

In India it is the deity Bidhata-Purusha who forecasts the events of each man's life, writing them succinctly on the forehead of the child six days after birth. The apportionment of good and evil fortune belongs to Lakshmi and Sani. Once they fell out in heaven, and Sani, the giver of ill, said that he ranked higher than the beneficent Lakshmi. The gods and goddesses were equally ranged on either side, so the two disputants decided to refer the case to a just mortal. To which end they approached a wise and wealthy man called Sribatsa. Now Sribatsa means "the child of Fortune," Sri being one of the names of Lakshmi. Sribatsa did not know what to do lest he should give offence to one or the other of the celestial powers. At last he set out two stools without saying a word; one was silver, and on that he bade Sani sit; the other was gold, and to that he conducted Lakshmi. But Sani was furious at having only the silver stool, so he swore that he would cast his evil eye upon Sribatsa for three years, "and I should like to see how you fare at the end of that time," he added. When he was gone, Lakshmi said: "My child, do not fear; I'll befriend you." Needless to say that after the three trial years were passed, Sribatsa became far more prosperous than he had ever been before.

Among the Parsis, a tray with writing materials including a sheet of blank paper is placed by the mother's bed on the night of the sixth day. The goddess who rules human destiny traces upon the paper the course of the child's future, which henceforth cannot be changed, though the writing is invisible to mortal eyes.

In Calabria there is a plant called "Fortune's Grass," which is suspended to the beams of the ceiling: if the leaves turn upwards, Fortune is sure to follow; if downwards, things may be expected to go wrong. The oracle is chiefly consulted on Ascension Day, when it is asked to tell the secrets confided to it by Christ when He walked upon the earth.

Auguries, portents, charms, waxen images, votive offerings, the evil eye and its antidotes, happy "finds," such as horseshoes, four-leaved shamrocks, and two-tailed lizards: these, and an infinite number of kindred superstitions, are closely linked with what may be called the Science of Luck. Fortune and Hecate come into no mere chance contiguity when they meet in the moon. For the rest, there is hardly any popular belief that has not points of contact with magic, and that is not in some sort made the more comprehensible by looking at the premises on which magical rites rest. Magic is the power admitted to exist among all classes not so very long ago, of entering by certain processes into relation with invisible powers. For modern convenience it was distinguished into black magic, and natural, and white--the latter name being given when the intention of the operant was only good or allowable, and when the powers invoked were only such as might be supposed, whether great or small, to be working in good understanding with the Creator. The reason of existence of all magic, which runs up into unfathomable antiquity, lies in the maxim of the ancient sages, Egyptian, Hebrew, Platonist, that all things visible and sensible are but types of things or beings immediately above them, and have their origin in such. Hence, in magical rites, black or white, men used and offered to the unseen powers those words or actions or substances which were conceived to be in correspondence with their character or nature, employing withal certain secret traditional man[oe]uvres. The lowest surviving form is fetish; sacrifice also had a similar source; so had the Mosaic prescriptions, in which only innocent rites and pure substances were to be employed. Whereas the most horrible practices and repulsive substances have always been associated with witches, necromancers, &c., who are reported to have put their wills at the absolute disposal of the infernal and malevolent powers who work in direct counter-action of the decrees and providence of the Deity. Hence the renunciation of baptism, treading on holy things, the significant act of saying the Lord's Prayer backwards, _i.e._, in the opposite intention to that of the author. This is the consummate sin of _pacti_, or, as it is said, "selling the soul," and is the very opposite of divine magic or the way of the typical saint: "Present yourselves a living sacrifice (not a dead carcase) in body, soul, and spirit." To persons in the last condition unusual effects have been ascribed, as it was believed that those who had put themselves at the absolute disposal of the malignant powers were also enabled to effect singular things, on the wrong side, indeed, and very inferior in order, so long as the agreement held good.

The most sensible definition of magic is "an effect sought to be produced by antecedents obviously inadequate in themselves." Certain words, gestures, practices, have been recognised on the tradition of ancient experience to have certain remedial or other properties or consequents, and they are used in all simplicity by persons who can find no other reason than that they are thought to succeed.

One of the most remarkable of early ideas still current about human destiny is that which pictures each man coupled with a personal and individualised fate. This fate may be beneficent or maleficent, a guardian angel or a possessive fiend; or it may, in appearance at least, combine both functions. The belief in a personal fate was deeply rooted among the Greeks and Romans, and proved especially acceptable to the Platonists. Socrates' daemon comes to mind: but in that case the analogy is not clear, because the inward voice to which the name of daemon was afterwards given, was rather a personal conscience than a personal fate--a difference that involves the whole question of the responsibility of man. But the evil genii of Dion the Syracusan and of Brutus were plainly "personal fates." Dion's evil genius appeared to him when he was sitting alone in the portico before his house one evening; it had the form of a gigantic woman, like one of the furies as they were represented on the stage, sweeping the floor with a broom. It did not speak, but the apparition was followed by the death of Dion's son, who jumped in a fit of childish passion from the house-top, and soon after, Dion himself was assassinated. Brutus' daemon was, as every-one knows, a monstrous spectre that seemed to be standing beside him in his tent one night, a little while before he left Asia, and which, on being questioned, said to him, "I am thy evil genius, Brutus, thou wilt see me at Philippi."