Chapter XVI: Part 16

[35] 'Cinderella' is a favourite in all countries, with its promise of compensation to the desolate and oppressed. I only came across it once, however, while making this collection, in its own simple form, and with a name as near its own as Cenorientola. Of course the construction of such words is quite arbitrary, and any Italian can make a dozen such out of any name or word: even in the dictionary the following variations are to be found--'Cenericcio,' 'Cenerognolo,' 'Cenerino,' 'Ceneroso,' 'Cenerugiolo.'

[36] Da mi tu panni belli,
Ed io te do i cencirelli.

[37] Da mi tu abiti belli
Ed io te do i stracciarelli.

The same as above: 'abiti' and 'panni' are convertible, so are 'cenci' and 'straccj.'

[38] 'Vaccarella,' 'dear little cow,' 'good little cow.' The endearment is expressed in the form of the diminutive.

[39] 'Maestra.'

[40] 'Basta,' 'enough,' 'to cut a long story short.'

[41] 'Fatata.'

[42] Butta sopr' alle corna a me,
E vatene far l'erba per me.

'Corno' is one of the words which (as 'muro,' 'novo,' 'braccio,' 'dito,' &c.), masculine in the singular, have a feminine plural.

[43] 'Carrèvale,' or 'corrèvale'--I could not very well distinguish which, and do not know the word. The narrator explained it as like 'cànapa'--hemp, only finer. 'Refe' is used in the same sense in Tuscany.

[44] Pallo dorato! Pallo dorato!
Vestimi d'oro e dammi l'innamorato.

'Dorato' is used for 'golden' as well as for 'gilt.' The change from 'palla,' a ball, to 'pallo' is a very considerable license, for the sake of making it rime with 'innamorato;' though some words admit of being spelt either way, as 'mattino' or 'mattina, 'botto' or 'botta' (a blow), and others can be used with either gender without alteration, as 'polvere.' I have never met with 'pallo' elsewhere, though it is one of the words which take a masculine augmentative ('pallone').

[45] 'Novena,' a short service, with or without a sermon, said for nine days before some great festival, in preparation for it.

[46] 'Pianella,' a sandal, or slipper without a heel. 'In those days they used to wear such things instead of shoes,' commented the old lady as she told the tale.

[47] 'Botte,' a very large wine-barrel of a certain measure.

[48] Here called 'buona figlia,' 'good daughter.' There did not seem any reason for this designation. Possibly the narrator had forgotten some incident of the story, introducing it.

[49] That the cellar should be, as thus appears, on the ground-floor, is very characteristic of Rome, though there are, of course, plenty of underground cellars too; but the one is properly 'cantino' and 'canova,' and the other 'grottino.' The distinction is, however, not very rigidly observed in common parlance. To have an underground cellar is so far a specialité, that it has been taken to be a sufficiently distinctive attribute to supply the sign or title to those inns which possess it. Rufini gives examples of above a dozen thus called 'Del Grottino.'

[50] The ground-floor being used as a cellar, the family lives upstairs. This is a very common arrangement.

[51] The reader who has not access to a better rendering of this beautiful legend will find one I have given from Bopp, in 'Sagas from the Far East,' pp. 402-3; but Mr. Ralston gives us a Russian version, in which a doll or puppet is the agent instead of the cow (pp. 150-9). It is true, on the other hand, that he has (p. 115) another rather different story, in which a cow also gives good gifts; and mentions others at p. 260. In a story of the Italian Tirol, 'Le due Sorelle,' which I shall have occasion to notice later, a cow has also a supernatural part to play, somewhat like that of Vaccarella; only there she acts at the bidding of a fairy, not of her own motion.

[52] 'Il Rè che va a Pranzo.'

[53] I am inclined to think there was some forgetfulness here on the part of the narrator; such artifices always fulfil the conditions they evade in some underhand way--they never set them utterly at defiance, as in the instance in the text. Such conditions also always go in threes; the third was probably forgotten in this instance.

[54] 'Pizza,' a cake made of Indian corn.

[55] 'Cartoccio,' a conical paper parcel.

[56] 'Bacchettino da comando.'

[57] 'Biocca cogli polsini d'oro,' a hen and chickens all of gold; 'biocca' is a word used by peasants for 'gallina,' and 'polsini' for 'pollastri.'

[58] 'Pescheria,' ordinarily 'fish-market,' but sometimes, as in this place, a tank or piece of water for preserving fish for table. That so large a fish as a whale should be kept in one, is only one of the exaggerations proper to the realm of fable.

[59] The very incident which occurs in the stepmother story of 'How the Serpent-gods were Propitiated,' in 'Sagas from the Far East.'

[60] 'Il vaso di persa.' Marjoram goes by the name of 'persa' in the vernacular of Rome. Parsley, which sounds the more literal translation, is 'erbetta.' I think the narrator believed it to be connected with Persia.

[61] 'Fata' is a powerful enchantress. I know no English equivalent but 'fairy,' though there is this difference that a 'fata' is by no means invariably an airy and beautiful being; she more often wears a very ordinary appearance, and not unfrequently that of a very old wrinkled woman, but is always goodnatured and benevolent, as distinguished from the malevolent 'strega,' a nearer counterpart of our 'witch.'

[62] 'Le femmine sempre pigliano il peggio.'

[63] 'Non tutto il male vien' per nuocere.'

[64] 'Orgo,' the vernacular form of the classic 'Orco,' is the Italian equivalent for 'Old Bogey;' but it is also used in place of 'orso,' a bear (as in the precise instance of this tale being told to me), when it is desired to give terror to his character in a tale.

[65] Has this anything to do with 'riding the cock-horse'?

[66] 'Il Vaso di Ruta.'

[67] 'Orco ed orchessa.'

[68] This was pronounced 'Uttone,' but was doubtless intended for 'King Otho.' Words which in Latin were spelt with a u, as 'Bollo,' 'pollo,' retain the sound of u in the mouth of the people; but I know of no reason for it in the present instance.

[69] 'Precipizio,' equivalent to 'an explosion,' 'a terrible kick-up,' &c.

[70] The blood instead of the fat is one of the variations of this version. It is not easy to see how blood can enter into the composition of an ointment, yet one of the most frequent charges to be met in processes against witches was taking the blood of infants to make various ointments.

[71] Maria di Legno.

[72] This is one of the very rare instances in which the Devil appears in Roman stories in this kind of character, so common in Northern popular tales.

[73] 'Colle gioie compagne.'

[74] 'Vecchiarella.'

[75] 'Gallinara.'

[76] A 'buon carnevale' chiefly implies the wish that the person to whom it is addressed should have good success with partners at the balls, &c.

[77] A 'festino' is the common name for a public masqued ball commencing at midnight. There are three principal ones in the Roman Carneval; in other parts of Italy, where the Carneval is longer, there are probably more. It is also called 'Veglione,' because it keeps people awake at a time when they ought to be in bed.

[78] 'How quick princes always were in falling in love in those days!' was the running comment of the narrator.

[79] To understand the implied satire of this word it is necessary to observe that 'Frusta' is a whip; the princess therefore says she came from 'Frustinaia,' Whip-blow.

[80] 'Stivale,' a boot. As the prince had struck her with his boot, she says she comes from 'Stivalaia,' Boot-kick.

[81] 'Schiaffaia' from schiaffa, a slap. The prince had given her a slap, so she says she comes from Slap-land.

[82] Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. 'Candeliere' (masc.), otherwise 'candelliere,' is the proper form; and I do not think 'candeliera' will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined.

[83] 'I due Fratelli Gobbi.'

[84] 'Bachettone mena!' Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block in the way of acquiring familiarity with the art of conversing in Italian is the capricious use of the augmentative and diminutive terminations of words. Scarcely any substantive or adjective comes out of the mouth of an Italian without qualifications of this sort, making the spoken quite different from the written language. A foreigner can never arrive at the right use of these, because they have to be made up at the moment of use, upon no established laws, but entirely by a sort of instinctive perception of fitness. At Note 1 and 3 to 'Il Poveretto,' and other places, I have given some specimens of some of the most ordinary of these transformations. In the instance before us, 'bacchettone,' from 'bacchetta,' a rod, presents two distinct irregularities. The augmentative of a feminine noun never ought strictly to be 'ona;' but there are numerous instances, scarcely to be remembered under the largest practice, in which a feminine noun takes a masculine augmentative. 'Bacchetta' happens to be one of these. Next, the addition 'one' would ordinarily express that the thing to whose designation it was added was particularly big; yet in this instance it is applied to a little wand; it is clear, therefore, that it no longer means 'big,' but 'singular,' 'remarkable' in some way or other; best rendered in English by 'good stick.' 'Menare,' whence 'mena,' is a word of many meanings, which, though they may be all traced to the same original idea, must not be confounded. In common parlance, as in the present case, it means to beat; and 'menar moglie' is a common expression too; but it does not mean 'to beat your wife,' but 'to lead home a wife,' or, as we say, to 'take a wife.' The primary meaning is 'to lead;' hence, to govern; hence, to govern harshly; hence, to govern with violence; hence, to spite, to beat. One sentence in which it is used recalls a capricious use of our own word 'to beat.' 'Menar' il cane per l'aja' (literally, to lead the dog all about the threshing-floor), answers exactly to our expression, 'to beat about the bush' in talking. 'Menare' and 'dimenare, la coda,' is said also of a dog wagging his tail. On the other hand, 'menare per il naso' (literally, 'to lead one by the nose'), has by no means the signification those words bear in English, but implies a roundabout way of giving an account of anything.

[85] 'Il Rè Moro.'

[86] 'Moro' does not necessarily mean a Moor, it is continually used for any dark-complexioned person; also commonly for dark or black, as a pet name for a black dog, &c.

[87] The 'moccolaio.'

[88] The narrator ended this story with the following stanza:--

Si faceva le nozze
Con pane e tozze,
E polla vermiciosa,
E viva la sposa!

This is one of those rough verses with which such stories abound, and they have been rendered rougher than they originally were by substituting words which serve to retain the jingle after those conveying the sense are forgotten, like many of our own nursery-rhymes. The literal rendering of this one would be, 'So the marriage was celebrated with bread and hunches of bread, and a chicken stuffed with vermicelli. Long live the bride!' 'Vermiciosa' is not a dictionary word; 'vermicoloso' is the nearest, and probably a corruption of the same. Of course, primarily it means 'full of worms;' but as all the forms of words compounded out of the diminutive of 'verme,' a worm, may be applied to the fine kind of maccaroni which bears the same name, I am more inclined to think a fowl stuffed or served up with maccaroni is meant here--if it have any meaning at all beyond the purpose of a rhyme--rather than 'a wormy fowl,' the literal interpretation.

I have met this same 'tag' again and again in the mouths of various narrators at the end of stories which end in a marriage. Another such, familiarly used by every Roman narrator, is:--

'Stretta la foglia,
Larga la via (often, 'Stretta la via'),
Dite la vostra, Larga la foglia,
Ch' ho detto la mia.'

('Narrow the leaf, broad the way. Tell me your tale, for I've told you mine.') Perhaps originally it was 'Larga la voglia' (my willingness is ample, but my means of amusing you are restricted).

[89] At what period the title of honour of 'Monsu' got appended to the monster's name is more than I can fix.

[90] 'Chi è?' 'amicè.' See note 3, p. 187.

[91] The reader will bear in mind, in this and other places, that 'papa' and 'mama' are vernacular for 'father' and 'mother' among children of the lowest classes in Italy.

[92] 'Son' io.' I have generally found these stories told with a great deal of effect, especially to suit the tone to the dialogues. It was particularly the case with this one, e.g. the 'son' io' was said in the lamentable tone of a person wearied with fatigue and disappointment.'

[93] 'Vatene, brutta cornuda!'

[94] 'La Rosa fatata.'

[95] According to the narrator, there was a dish of 'pasta' heaped up like a mountain; and 'souplis di riso con rigaglie' and 'capone con contorni,' and several kinds of wine. I give this description verbally, as it was given to me, as characteristic of the local colouring such legends receive. The dishes named are the favourites of the Roman middle class. 'Pasta' is the Roman equivalent for the 'maccaroni' of the Neapolitan. 'Rigaglie' is the liver, &c., of poultry minced, to put into the fried balls of rice. 'Contorni' means something more than 'garnish,' being something put round the dish, not merely for ornament, but more or less substantial, to be eaten with it, as sausages round a turkey.

[96] The word used in this place was 'mostro,' not 'orco,' marking a distinct idea in the tradition, where it is the Principle of Evil himself who is intended, and where, an unfortunate mortal subjected by malice to his influence.

[97] 'Sciocco,' a simpleton; 'scioccolone,' a great awkward simpleton.

[98] Even in this story, where the fairies really are described as fair to see, it will be observed it is only said they had assumed the forms of beautiful girls for one occasion, not that they were necessarily beautiful, like our fairies.

[99] 'Fatatura,' the virtue of enchantment.

[100] 'Villa' is more often used to express a little estate--or, as we should say, the 'grounds' on which a country-house stands--than for the house itself, though we have borrowed the word exclusively in the latter sense.

[101] 'Casino' a tasteful little house.

[102] 'Dodici palmi di naso,' a nose twelve palms long. Twelve palms make a canna and a half, equal to three mètres.

[103] 'Ciuffoletto.' 'What is a 'ciuffoletto?' I asked. 'Much the same as a fravodo,' the narrator answered; and I remembered that from another, in another tale, I had made out 'fravodo' to be a horn.

[104] That the second of the three sons should be the hero of the story is, I think, an unusual variation.

[105] See Note 4, p. 146.

[106] 'Mezza canna di Naso,' half a cane of nose. A cane is the former Roman standard measure, and was exactly equal to two mètres.

[107] 'Palmo,' was the expression used; the Canna was divided into eight palms.

[108] 'Calava, calava, calava.'

[109] 'Adesso so' a cavallo.' 'Now I am on the way to fortune.'

[110] 'Quell' fruttivendolo'; 'quell' uomo'! 'quella donna!' a vulgar way of calling after people.

[111] 'Spezziale,' a druggist ('droghiere' is a grocer). It is the custom in Rome for the doctors of the poor to sit in the druggists' shops, ready to be called for.

[112] 'Nasone,' a big nose.

[113] 'Pimperte; Pamperte! Pumperte!'

[114] 'Il Cicoriaro e la Principessa fatata.'

[115] 'Fa una zompa;' 'zompa' for 'zomba,' properly a blow, a thump; here, 'jumped down with a noise like a thump.'

[116] Bacchettone di comando, suits this use of it better than does the English equivalent.

[117] 'Ecco il vecchio!' such abrupt interruptions, with change of tense, are often introduced with dramatic effect by the narrators. A similar one occurs at p. 133. 'He sounds the horn and One comes.'

[118] 'E tutto andava benone;' 'bene,' well; 'benone,' superlatively well.

[119] 'La Somara.'

[120] The 'mercante di Campagna' occupies the place of farmer in the social system of Rome; that is, he produces and deals in grain and cattle; there is 'buttaro' (cattle breeder) besides; but the characteristics of each are so different that the one does not well translate the other.

[121] 'Cortello' for 'coltello' (a knife). The substitution of r for l in a good many words is a common Romanism.

[122] 'Dishperato' for 'disperato' ('out of himself with vexation'), is another Romanism; as also [123] 'Bashtonata' for 'bastonata' (a cudgelling); at least many Romans, particularly old-fashioned people, when using some words in which sp and st occur, put in an h on occasions requiring great vehemence of expression.

[124] Zecchini. The zecchino was the gold standard coin in Rome before that of the scudo was adopted. Its value was fixed in the reign of Clement XIII., 1758, at two scudi and twenty bajocchi--something between 10s. and 11s.; it was current till a few years back; and 'zecchini' is a common way of saying 'money' when a large sum is spoken of, just as we still talk of guineas.

[125] 'Merenda' is a supplementary meal taken at any time of day. It is not exactly lunch, because the habit of taking lunch at one and dining late has not yet obtained to any great extent in Rome; and where it has, lunch is called 'déjeûner'; breakfast (i.e. a cup of coffee and a roll early in the morning) is always called 'colazione.' The established custom of Rome is dinner ('pranzo,' or 'desinare,') at twelve, and supper ('cena') an hour or two after the Ave, varying, therefore, according to the time of year, from six or seven till nine or ten, and even later. 'Merenda' is a light meal between 'pranzo' and 'cena' of not altogether general use, and chiefly on occasions of driving outside the gates to spend the afternoon at a country villa or casino.

[126] 'Soma' is a burden; 'somaro' or 'somura' an ass used for carrying burdens. Thus in the next line it is spoken of as having panniers on as a matter of course.

[127] 'Che bell' insalatina; chi vuol insalatina; che bell' insalatina!' a common form of crying. 'Che belle mela!' 'What fine apples!' 'Che belle persiche!' or 'What fine peaches!' may be heard all the year round.

[128] 'Il Matrimonio di Cajusse,' I should imagine Caius was the right reading. Italians, though they are so fond of clipping off the final vowel of their own words, whenever they get hold of a foreign word ending in a consonant must needs always add a syllable on to it. The narrator in this instance could not spell, and I write the word as she pronounced it. Meeting with so close a counterpart of 'Aladdin's Lamp,' I cross-questioned the narrator very closely as to whether she had not read it, but she assured me most solemnly that her mother had told it her when she was not more than five years old; that it was impossible she could have read it, as she could only read very imperfectly, only a few easy sentences; she had never in her life read anything long. I further elicited that it was possible her mother might have read it; but I am inclined to think she said this rather to improve my idea of her family, than because she thought it was really the case.

[129] 'Piastra.' In Melchiorri's 'Guida Metodica di Roma,' ed. 1856, in the list of moneys current the half-scudo is put down as 'commonly called mezza piastra.' I do not remember to have heard it so used myself, though I have heard old people talk of piastres, the value of which would thus be the same as a scudo, or about five francs: an old inhabitant told me it was 7 1/2 bajocchi, more than a scudo.

[130] 'Mago.' I asked the narrator what her idea of a 'mago' was, and she said, 'Something like a stregone (masculine of strega, witch), only not quite so bad.'

[131] Genii having no place in modern Italian mythology, the 'Genius of the Lamp' loses his identity here.

[132] 'Posate,' spoons and forks. I spare the reader the enumeration of the Roman dishes which were detailed to me as figuring on the table, as I have had to quote many of them in other stories.

[133] 'I always used to wonder,' observed the narrator very pertinently, 'as my mother told me this, why they didn't rub the lamp again and ask for what they wanted, instead of going about pawning the posate. I suppose they had forgotten about it.'

[134] 'Pezzente,' a sorry fellow; literally beggar.

[135] 'Che ci penso io' is a saying ever in the mouth of a Roman. Whatever you may be giving directions about, they always stop you with 'Lasci far a me, che ci penso io' ('Leave it to me; I'll manage it.')

[136] 'Tre ore di notte' means three hours after the evening Ave. If it was summer-time this would be about 11 P.M. A subject of the 'Gran Sultan' being supposed to measure time by the Ave Maria is not one of the least bizarre of traditionary accretions.

[137] 'Chincaglieria,' all kinds of small articles of metal-work.

[138] 'Fravodo.' As I had never heard the word before, I was very particular in making the narrator repeat it, to take it down. She described it as a horn or trumpet, but I cannot meet with the word in any dictionary.

[139] The Holy Babe.

[140] 'Date mi un po' d'allogio;' lit., Give me a small quantity of lodging--a humble mode of expression.

[141] 'Chi è?' ('Who's there'); but the humour of the expression here lies in its being the invariable Roman custom to sing out 'Chi è?' and wait till 'Amici!' is answered, before any door is opened.

[142] Comp. with Legend of the Marmolata in 'Household Stories from the land of Hofer.'

[143] 'Un pagnotto di polenta' was the expression used, meaning a great coarse loaf of Indian corn. The Roman poor have much the same contempt for inferior bread that we meet with in the same class at home, none eat 'seconds' who can possibly avoid it; but the pagnotto di polenta is only eaten by the poorest peasants.

[144] 'Strutto,' lard, enters into the composition of almost every Roman popular dish.

[145] 'Che bolliva,' constantly applied in Roman parlance to solids as well as liquids.

[146] The narrator was an admirable reciter, and as she uttered this 'Vi sia concessa,' in a solemn and majestic manner, she raised her hand and made the sign of the cross with a rapid and facile gesture, just as she might have seen the Pope do as he drove through Rome.

[147] 'Trattoria,' can only be translated by 'tavern,' but unfortunately the English word represents quite a different idea from the Roman. 'Tavern' suggests noise and riot, but a 'trattoria' is a place where a poor Roman will take his family to dine quietly with him on a festa as a treat.

[148] 'Death,' being feminine in Italian, has to be personified as a woman. The same occurs in a Spanish counterpart of this story which I have given under the title of 'Starving John the Doctor' in 'Patrañas.' The Spanish counterpart of the rest of the story will be found in 'Where one can dine two can dine' ('Un Convidado invida a ciento') in the same series.

[149] 'Olive the priest.' 'When we were children,' said the narrator, 'my father used to tell us such a lot of stories of an evening, but of them all the two we used to ask for most, again and again, and the only two I remember, were "Mi butto," and "Pret' Olivo." Do you know "Mi butto"? We used to shudder at it, and yet we used to ask for it.' I incautiously admitted I did know it, instead of acquiring a fresh version. 'Then here is "Pret' Olivo." I don't suppose I was more than seven then, and now I am thirty-five, and I have never heard it since, but I'll make the best I can of it. Of course it is not a true story; we knew that it couldn't be true, as anyone can see; but it used to interest us children.'

[150] 'Vaene brutto prete! Questa non è roba per me.'

[151] 'Brutto Plutone!' The traditional application of the name will not have escaped the reader.

[152] 'Holzhund,' I suppose, is used for wild dog.

[153] Unquestionably a very exaggerated tradition of the aberrations and final submission to the Church of Abelard (Pietro Abelardo in Italian), some of whose writings were publicly burnt in Rome by the Inquisition in 1140.

[154] The Office of the Inquisition behind the Colonnade of St. Peter's.

[155] 'Libro di comando.' A book of divination.

[156] St. John and Paul. The Church of the Passionists on the Coelian.

[157] I.e. St. Iago di Compostella.

[158] 'Scrittura,' a written compact.

[159] 'Chierico' of course means a cleric, but in common parlance it is reserved for the boy who, though lay, wears a clerical dress for the time he is serving mass, or attending to the church generally. In the present instance it would probably be a youth in minor orders.

[160] 'Paino' and 'paina' mean one, who, according to his or her condition, ought to be dressed in the national style, but who does affect to dress like a gentleman or lady.

[161] 'Chi va a Loreto
E non va a Cirollo,
Vede la Madre
E non vede il figliuolo.'

[162] I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. 'Cirollo,' she said, 'is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckoned miracolosissimo.' In Murray's map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.

Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. 'Have you ever been to Loreto?' I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.

'Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.' she replied with something of enthusiasm. 'And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?'

'Not yet,' I replied; 'but I mean to go one day;' and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:

'Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). 'Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which is miracolosissimo.'

[163] 'Quanto la mente dell' uomo.'

[164] 'Dispetto,' an affront, rather than an injury.

[165] 'Tira via, brutta bestia,' literally 'fire away'--is used in all senses the same as in English.

[166] The question of night flights through the air, and more, whether in the body or out of the body, than whether they were ever effected at all, was one of the most hotly contested questions of demonographers. Tartarotti, lib. I. cap. viii. § vi., winds up a long account of the subject with the following:--'... So divided was opinion on the subject, not only of Catholics as against heterodox, but between Catholics and Catholics, that after reading in Delrio 'qui hæc asserunt somnia esse et ludibrio certe peccant contra reverentiam Ecclesiæ matri debitam,' and 'Hæc opinio (somnia hæc esse) tanquam hæretica est reprobanda;' and in Bartolomeo Spina, 'Negare quod diabolus possit portare homines de loco in locum est hæreticum;' you may see in Emmanuel Rodriguez, a great theologian and canonist, 'Peccat mortaliter qui credit veneficos aut veneficas vel striges corporaliter per aëra vehi ad diversa loca, ut illi existimant;' while Navarro mildly says, 'Credere quod aliquando, licet raro, dæmon aliquis de loco in locum, Deo permittente, transportet non est peccatum.'

Tartarotti supplies a long list of writers who, in the course of the sixteenth and two following centuries, took the opposite sides on this question, and quotes from Dr. John Weir, (Protestant) physician to the Duke of Cleves (In Apol. sec. iv. p. 582), that the Protestants were most numerous on the side which maintained that it was an actual and corporeal and not a mental or imaginative transaction. Cesare Cantù has likewise given an exposition of the treatment of the question in 'Gli Eretici d'ltalia,' discorso xxxiii., and 'Storia Universale,' epoca xv. cap. 14, p. 488. In note 1 he gives a list of a dozen of the most celebrated Protestant writers who upheld the actuality of the witches' congress.

[167] 'Bocca a terra.'

[168] 'Accademia' used here for 'Conversazione.'

[169] 'Pentiti!'

[170] 'Discolo,' 'wild,' 'fast.'

[171] The shrine of S. Iago di Compostella being traditionally known to the Roman poor as 'S. Giacomo di Galizia,' Galizia was not very unnaturally supposed by the narrator to be the name of a town.

[172] 'Dovene siete, poveri pellegrini,
Quanti son' lunghi i vostri cammini?'

[173] 'Avemo camminati monti e piani,
E siamo di Castello mont' Albano,
Andiamo cercando un figlio Giuliano.'

A walled village, whether it had an actual castle or not, had the name of 'Castello;' and 'Castello' is the common name to the present day in Rome for the villages in the neighbourhood.

[174] 'Mastri.'

[175] 'Noi siamo i mastri! noi siamo i mastri!
Chè tanti ponti abbiamo fatti.'

[176] 'Arruzzicatelo' was the word used. Ruzzica is a game played by rolling circles of wood of a certain thickness along a smooth alley. She tells him to roll the cheese in this way as an inducement to the dog to go over to try the strength of the bridge.

[177] 'Uomicino,' a little man. As the narrator had come to the borders of Wonderland, this must, I think, be taken to be one of those dwarfs--little men of the mountains, 'Bergmänlein,' who have so large a place in German, especially in Tirolean mythology, but are so rarely to be met in that of Rome.

[178] 'Una donna maestosa con un bambino in braccia; e questa era la Madonna, capisce.' This use of the verb capire to express 'you see,' &c., is a favourite Romanism; in Tuscany they use the verb intendere.

[179] 'Donna trovata non fu mai buona.'

[180] 'Il nonno accanto al fuoco.' Giving to understand that it was an old traditionary tale.

[181] 'La Pescheria di San Francesco.' Pescheria, see p. 45. Many Italian convents are provided with such.

[182] 'Sora' in this place does not mean 'sister'; it is an expression in Roman vernacular for which we have no equivalent, and is applied to respectable persons of the lower class who do not aspire to be called 'Signora,' 'Mrs.,' or 'Miss,' as with us. 'Sor' or 'Ser' is the masculine equivalent; we had it in use at p. 194.

[183] The word used was 'candida,' and not 'bianca,' as expressive of purest white.

[184] 'Sant' Antonio ed il Santo Bambino.'

[185] I believe St. Anthony was never in Rome; but his genial winning character made him so popular that the people speak of him as one of themselves.

[186] St. Anthony's date is 1195-1231; so the idea of making his observer a Protestant, and a smoker to boot, is very quaint, and is an instance of how chronological order gets confused by tradition.

[187] 'Fraticello'; 'good little friar.' An affectionate way of speaking of Franciscans often used.

[188] 'Magàri!' a very strong form of 'indeed.'

[189] 'La strapazzava,' a word particularly applied to overworking a horse.

[190] 'Di una rara bellezza.'

[191] 'Era disperata.'

[192] 'Un sacco crudo,' a loose garment made of harsh sackcloth that had not been dressed.

[193] Handkerchiefs are used so habitually for tying up parcels in Rome, that the narrator thought it worth while to specify that this one was a 'fazzaletto di naso.'

[194] The life is thus given in Butler:--'Margaret was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The harshness of a stepmother and her own indulged propension to vice cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase of a man, half-putrefied, who had been her gallant, struck her with so great a fear of the Divine judgments, and with so deep a sense of the treachery of the world, that she in a moment became a perfect penitent. The first thing she did was to throw herself at her father's feet, bathed in tears, to beg his pardon for her contempt of his authority and fatherly admonitions. She spent the days and nights in tears; and to repair the scandal she had given by her crimes, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope about her neck, and there asked public pardon for them. After this she repaired to Cortona and made her most penitent confession to a father of the Order of S. Francis, who admired the great sentiments of compunction with which she was filled, and prescribed her austerities and practices suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened in the year 1274, the twenty-fifth of her age.... This model of true penitents, after twenty-three years spent in severe penance, twenty of them in the religious habit, being worn out by austerities and consumed by the fire of divine love, died on the 22nd of February 1297.'

[195] 'Vecchiaccia'; the addition accia implies that she was bad: probably a witch was intended.

[196] 'La Monica Beatrice.' 'Monica,' provincialism or vulgarism for 'monaca,' a nun.

[197] 'Albagia,' self-esteem, vanity.

[198] 'Rotara,' equivalent to portress; it alludes to her having charge of the 'ruota,' or 'turniquet,' through which things are passed in and out and messages conveyed through a convent-wall, without the nun having to present herself at the door.

[199] 'Fattore,' an agent employed by most convents to attend to their secular affairs.

[200] 'Suora' is the received word for a 'Sister' in a convent. 'Sister,' the natural relationship, is 'Sorella.'

[201] 'Grascia e annòna' are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590-1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity.

[202] These people generally call the popes by their family names. This 'Papa Medici' would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566.

[203] 'Brutte anime,' 'ugly souls.'

[204] All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, 'Dei Miracoli' and 'di Monte Santo'--are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip's time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; but he did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.--Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420.

[205] 'Impicciare,' 'entangle myself with,' 'interfere with'--a very favourite Romanism.

[206] 'Impicciare,' again here.

[207] 'Campagnola,' a peasant of the Campagna near Rome.

[208] A rubbio is between four and five acres.

[209] St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de' Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables.

[210] 'Scocciare,' to persevere to weariness; to din.

[211] 'Vassalli,' in the older dictionaries 'vassallo' is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond.

[212] 'Il Perdon di Asisi.' The indulgences attached to visiting the Church of S. Maria degli Angeli near Asisi (otherwise called the Porziuncula), received this name on occasion of its consecration on the 1st and 2nd August, 1225. The visit on the anniversary became one of the most popular of Italian pilgrimages.

[213] San Felice di Cantaliccio, 1513-87, is a very popular saint among the Romans, for one reason because he was born of poor parentage. Though of low origin, and only a lay brother in his convent, he was frequently consulted by important people on account of his piety and prudence. St. Charles Borromeo took great note of his advice. He was a contemporary of St. Philip.

[214] St. Vincent Ferrer, who is so popular a saint among the Romans, so continually coupled with St. Philip and his acts, and always spoken of as if he had all his life been an inhabitant of Rome, lived just two centuries earlier (1351-1419) than the 'Apostle of Rome.' Though he went about preaching and reforming all over Europe, and even in England and Ireland at the invitation of Henry IV., he was yet never in Rome at all, though much at Avignon under the so-called Benedict XIII., his countryman, with whom he used all his influence to make him put an end to the schism.

[215] Innocent IX., who reigned 1590-1, took a great deal of notice of St. Philip. It is curious the narrator should have been so far out concerning St. Vincent and so correct about this.

[216] 'Un vecchietto e un'altro.'

[217] 'Rotonda,' the vulgar name of the Pantheon, gives its appellation to the market which is held in the 'Salita de' Cresconzi' and other adjoining streets.

[218] 'Gola,' the throat; used for 'gluttony.'

[219] Pius VI., who reigned 1775-1799.

[220] S. Joseph Labre was born at Boulogne, of parents of the lower middle class, in 1749, and died 1783. He came to Rome on a pilgrimage when young, and remained here the rest of his days, passing his time in prayer and contemplation in the various shrines of Rome. He every year made the pilgrimage to Loreto on foot. He was supported entirely by the alms of the people.

[221] In the Rione Monti are the streets chiefly inhabited by the poor and working classes of Rome. Joseph Labre passed his life in their midst, and they always speak of him with affection, as a hero of their own order. It only needs to go to the Church of the Madonna de' Monti on the day of his 'Patrocinio' to see how popular he is.

[222] The stations of the 'Way of the Cross' are arranged round the interior of the Coliseum; and until out-of-door devotions were forbidden by the new Government, the Via Crucis was constantly performed here, led by a Capuchin and by various confraternities, and always well attended.

[223] Le dodici Parole della Verità.

[224] 'Uno e primo è Domeniddio, che sempre c'aiuta.'

[225] 'Due sono le chiavi del cielo, c'è l'oro.'

[226] 'Tre sono tre Patriarchi Abramine, Giacobbe, e Isaache.'

[227] 'Quattro sono le quattro colonne che il mondo mantiene; Luca, Giovanni, Marco, e Matteo.'

[228] 'Cinque sono le piaghe de Gesù Cristo.'

[229] 'Sei sono i sei galli che cantorno in Galilea.'

[230] 'Sette sono i sette cerini ch' ardorno in Gerusalemme.'

[231] 'Otto è l'ottava di Cristo.'

[232] 'Nove sono i nove cori degli angeli.'

[233] 'Dieci è la diecenna di Cristo.'

[234] 'Undici è la coronazione di spine.'

[235] 'Dodici sono i dodici Apostoli.'

[236] 'Il Morto della Quercia.'

[237] 'Camminò, camminò, camminò;' see note 6, p. 13.

[238] 'Quattro arquebuzate.'

[239] 'Frateria,' a popular word for a monastery.

[240] 'La Lettera del Morto.'

[241] 'Bussola,' a box for alms, &c.

[242] 'Painone,' 'Paino'; a sneering way of naming a well-dressed person. 'Painone,' augmentative of the same.

[243] 'Sua Eccellenza.' The cant form of address of the Roman beggar.

[244] 'L'Anima Bianca.'

[245] 'A vitalizia' is an agreement by which persons pay a sum down and are taken in to board for the rest of their lives.

[246] 'La Festa dei Morti,' November 2.

[247] 'Chè è ora dell' orazione.' I give this very quaint idea in the words in which it was told to me.

[248] 'Era altro che un festino, il chiarore.' The lighting up of a theatre for a public masqued ball would naturally be the highest impression of brightness for a poor man in Rome. 'Altro che' is his favourite word in the sense of 'no comparison.' 'Altro!' alone stands for 'I should think so!' 'Isn't it indeed!' &c.

[249] Since the invasion of September 1870, Rome has been placarded with announcements of mediums who may be consulted on every possible occasion. I give the whole story as it was told me, but I have, of course, no means of knowing how the séance was conducted, and there is every likelihood the man would be so full of the strange occurrence that he would begin by letting out all on which he came to it to seek confirmation. The introduction of these mediums has been welcomed as supplying the means of gratifying that craving after the supernatural which was denied them under the former administration. 'Witchcraft was forbidden by the former law, therefore we may suppose it was wrong,' reason the less intelligent and those who wish to be deceived; 'spiritismo is allowed by the law which rules us to-day, therefore we may suppose it is right;' and thus we are beginning to see here what Cantù had written of other parts of Italy and Europe: 'But who will feel the courage to contemn the follies of another age when he sees the absurd credulity of our own, which upon similar manifestations founds other theories.... Recent writers on the subject (see in particular, Allan Kardec, 'Le Spiritisme à sa plus simple expression,' 'Le Livre des esprits,' &c.), themselves acknowledge that the oracles and pythonesses of old, and the genii, sorcerers, and magicians of later ages, were the predecessors of these mediums. We have therefore come back to that which we ridicule in our ancestors.'

[250] 'La serpe bianca;' 'serpe' is of both genders, but is most commonly used in the feminine as in the common saying 'allevarsi la serpe in seno,' to nurture a serpent in one's bosom.

[251] 'Per far legna.' 'Fare' is brought in on all occasions. Bazzarini gives 59 closely printed columns of instances of its various uses; here it means to cut wood for burning; 'legno' is wood; 'legna,' wood for burning.

[252] 'S'alzerà un morto.'

[253] S. Agostino is the favourite with the people of all the churches of Rome.

[254] 'Brutti assassini.' In a country where the cultus of 'il bello' has been so well understood, 'ugly' has naturally come to be used as a term of deepest reproach.

[255] 'Si, si, questo è positivo, non è donnicciolara, è positivo.'

[256] This kind of spell seems analogous to one of which a curious account is preserved by Menghi (Compendio dell'Arte Essorcista, lib. ii. cap. xl.), which I quote, because it has a local connexion with Rome, and there are not many such. An inhabitant of Dachono in Bohemia, he says, brought his son, a priest, to Rome in the Pontificate of Pius II. (1458-64) to be exorcised, as all relief failed in his own country; a woman whom he had reproved for her bad life had bewitched him, adding, 'that the spell (maldicio) was imposed on him by her under a certain tree, and if it was not removed in the same way, he could not otherwise be set free; and she would not reveal under what tree it was.' The spell acted upon him only at such times as he was about to exercise his sacred ministry, and then it impeded his actions, forced him to put his tongue out at the cross, &c. &c. 'The more earnest the devotion with which I strive to give myself to prayer,' he said, 'so much the more cruelly the devil rends me' (mi lacera). In St. Peter's, the narrator goes on to say, is a column brought from the Temple of Solomon, by means of which many possessed persons have been liberated, because our Lord had leant against it when teaching there, and it was thought that this might be sufficiently potent to represent the fatal tree. He was brought to it, however, in vain. Being tied to it, and asked to point out the spot where Christ had touched it, the spirit which possessed him replied by making him bite it on a certain spot with his teeth and say, 'Qui stette, qui stette,' (here He stood) in Italian, although he did not know a word of the language, and was obliged to inquire what the words he had uttered meant. But the spell, nevertheless, was not got rid of thus. It was then understood that the spirit must be of that kind of which Christ had said 'he goeth not out except by prayer and fasting;' and a pious and venerable bishop, taking compassion on the man, devoted himself to prayer and fasting for him all through Lent; and thus he was delivered and sent back to his own country rejoicing.

[257] 'Fattore,' an agent; a man who attends to the business and pecuniary affairs of a convent.

[258] 'Suora Maria tale.' Mary being such a favourite name, it has to be generally qualified by a second name being appended to it by way of distinction.

[259] 'Fiaccole di paglia.'

[260] 'Ma che!' is a very strong and indignant form of 'No!' about equivalent to 'What are you thinking of?' 'How can you?' In Tuscany they say, 'Che! Che!'

[261] 'Fantasimi,' for 'fantasmi,' apparitions.

[262] 'Spirito.'

[263] 'Il fantasimo di S. Giovanni.'

[264] 'Cacciatore' is a huntsman or sportsman of any kind; but in Rome it designates especially a man of a roving and adventurous class whose occupation in life is to shoot game for the market according to the various seasons, as there are large tracts of country where game is not preserved.

[265] 'Falcaccio,' a horrid, great hawk.

[266] Cancellieri (Mercato, § xvi.) mentions the actual finding of such a treasure; or at least of 'thousands of pieces of gold money, in a hole leading to a drain of the fountain in Piazza Madama, on May 30, 1652, by a boy who had accidentally dropped a toy into this hole.' One such fact would afford substance to a multitude of such fictions: though they doubtless had their origin in the discovery of mineral wealth.

[267] See conversation at the end of the 'Serpe bianca.' Further details of a similar nature were given me in connection with a number of brigand stories which I have in MS.

[268] 'Monti,' Rione Monti, the most populous district in Rome.

[269] 'Papetto,' equal to two pauls; about three halfpence more than a (silver) lira or franc. In use in Rome until the monetary convention with France in 1868.

[270] 'Cataletto,' a kind of large roomy coffin, with a hollow wagonheaded lid, in which dead or wounded persons are carried.

[271] 'Barretta' or 'bara,' is the bier on which the 'cataletto' is carried; but it is most often made all in one, and either word is used for either, as also 'feretro.' 'Aver la bocca sulla bara,' is 'to have one foot in the grave.'

[272] 'Paino,' see n. 3, p. 264.

[273] It must be a very quaint condition of mind which can imagine that a fortune of something like three millions sterling can be quietly removed in secret in gold coin from a cellar to a bedroom in the small hours of the night. But then to persons like the narrator a few pieces of gold seem a fortune.

[274] I do not give the names because, though the tradition is probably true enough of somebody, the particular names introduced were decidedly incorrect historically.

[275] Litta, 'Storia delle Famiglie italiane,' traces that from the beginning the Colonna family was always Ghibeline. The present representatives of the house, however, are reckoned Papalini.

[276] 'Zoccolo,' a wooden sandal kept on the foot by a leather strap over the instep. It is worn by certain 'scalsi' or 'barefooted' friars, hence called by the people 'zoccolanti.' The street near Ponte Sisto in Rome, called Via delle Zoccolette, received its name from a convent of nuns there who also wore 'zoccoli.'

[277] That Sciarra Colonna headed a band of 'spadassini' against Boniface VIII., and made himself the tool of Philippe le Bel, is of course true to history, as also that he held him imprisoned for a time at Anagni. The Pontiff's biographer, Tosti, mentions however only to refute them, 'le favole Ferretiane,' to which Sismondi, 'Storia delle Republiche italiane,' gives currency, and which embody the floating tradition in the text. 'Ferreto da Vicenza,' writes Tosti, 'narrates that a kind of poison was administered to this great Pontiff, which put him in a state of phrenzy; the servant who waited on him, also, was sent away, and being left alone in the room he is supposed to have gnawed at a stick (in another allusion to the same fable--at page 293--he says, 'his fingers' as in the text), and struck his head against the wall so desperately that his white hairs were all stained with blood; finally, that he suffocated himself under the counterpane invoking Beelzebub. But when we think how Boniface arrived at extreme old age, enfeebled with reverses; how, shut up in a room alone, there was no one to be witness to the alleged gnawing and knocking and Satanic invocations, and how that the manner of his death was quite differently related by eye-witnesses, I do not know for whom Sismondi could have thought he was writing when he marred his history by inserting such a fable. What certainly happened, and it is certified by Cardinal Stefaneschi, who was present, and by the Report afterwards drawn up of the acts of Boniface--was, that 'he was lodged in the Vatican at the time of his death, and breathed his last tranquilly. The bed of the dying Pontiff was surrounded by eight cardinals and by other distinguished persons (Process. Bonif. p. 37, p. 15), to whom, according to the custom of his predecessors, he made confession of faith, affirming, however enfeebled his voice, that he had lived in that faith, and wished to die in it, a Catholic. Consoled with the Viaticum of the Sacraments he gave up his soul to God, weary with the prolonged struggle he had sustained for the rights of the Church, ... thirty-five days after his imprisonment at Anagni' (vol. ii. p. 286-7). Platina goes into less detail, but also records that he died in Rome (Le vite de' Pontefici, Venice, 1674, p. 344). The magnanimous stedfastness evinced by Boniface when attacked by Colonna and Nogaret, all abandoned as he was by human aid (detailed by Tosti, p. 276, et seq.), could not but have been succeeded by a grander closing scene than that imagined by Ferreto. Maroni (vi. 17-18) not only narrates that he survived the Anagni affair to return to Rome, but that with great Christian charity he ordered Nogaret, who had been taken prisoner by the Romans in the meantime, to be released from confinement; and [xiv. 283] that he could have had no poison administered to him at Anagni, for all the time he was imprisoned he would eat nothing but eggs on purpose to be proof against it. The best disproof of the story, however, is that given by Tosti (p. 296-7). In the clearing for the rebuilding of the nave of St. Peter's, 302 years after the death of Boniface, his sepulchre was opened and the grave then revealed the truth. It so happened that his body had scarcely undergone any change, and those who stood by could hence depose that both his head and his hands were quite perfect; there were no marks or blows on the former, and so far from his finger-tips being gnawed, they noticed that the nails even were particularly long. The face also wore a peculiarly placid expression.