research. Perhaps the thought got its earliest proverbial setting from his pen. Considering the scores of proverbs or proverbial phrases in Shakespeare not to be found elsewhere, one would expect to find more in Dante. There are, however, apparently very few; for a thought that has become famous is not necessarily a proverb. The she-cat is one of a dozen animals to which Dante compares his demons. CHAPTER XV THE MOUSE-IL SORCO-IL TOPO 'MYSTICALLY,' says Rabanus Maurus,1 'mice signify men who, in their breathless eagerness for earthly gains, filch their booty from another's store.' So it was with Ciampolo, a political jobber, whom Dante 2 compares to a mouse that has fallen into the clutches of ill-minded cats; for Ciampolo, having got out of the hot pitch, has fallen amidst demons. The mouse is thus looked upon as a noxious beast. As Ciampolo has stolen public funds, so the mouse, by robbing another's store, is finally rewarded by getting into the claws of malevolent cats. 3 Ciampolo hits on this trick to get away. If the demons will but stop their clawing awhile and stand aside so that his fellow-jobbers may not fear, without budging from the spot he will whistle (the sign at which these jobbers emerge from the pitch to cool), and, 1 De Universo, lib. VIII, 2, 'Mystice autem mures significant homines cupiditate terrena inhiantes et prædam de aliena substantia surripientes.' 2 Inf. XXII, 58, 'Tra male gatte era venuto il sorco.' The form 'sorco' (for 'sorcio') had become antiquated in Florence before 1550; for Gelli in his lectures on Dante (vol. II, p. 364) comments thus, 'uno sorcio, cioè, diciamo noi.' For another early occurrence of 'sorco' in its plural 'sorchi,' see Liber de curis avium in Scelta di Curios. Lett. vol. 140, p. 20, ‘. . . e troverai le plumate [rimanenza di pelo o di piuma?] pelose di sorchi,' etc. 3 Inf. XXII, 100. whereas he is but one, will get seven to come.1 The demon Cagnazzo mistrusts: 'Hear his malicious craft, to plunge below!' Then he, so rich in trickeries, replied: — LONGFELLOW. The demon Alichino, thinking himself too sly to be caught, leads the other demons to be deceived. The jobber dives, and Alichino tries in vain to catch him. The demon Calcabrina grapples with Alichino, both fall into the boiling pitch, whereat four demons with hooks rush to haul out their companions ungrappled' by the heat. Thus Dante and Virgil leave them, and Dante is reminded of a fable: Volto era in sulla favola d' Isopo Upon the fable of Æsop was directed My thought, by reason of the present quarrel. For mo and issa are not more alike 1 Inf. XXII, 103-104. 2' Dicit ergo: che mo et issa, idest, ista duo vulgaria, quæ tantum significant quantum de praesenti, sed aliqui tusci dicunt mo, aliqui lombardi dicunt issa.'- BENVENUTO DA IMOLA. 3 Inf. XXIII, 4–9. Than this one is to that, if well we couple -LONGFELLOW. Although Dante has already called the jobber Ciampolo a mouse (XXII, 58), and compared the sinners in the pitch to frogs (XXII, 26–33), the fable seems to have been suggested to him rather by the immediate quarrel which Calcabrina had wished to have with Alichino (XXII, 135), just as the frog 'deceitfully proposes to help the mouse.' But in what fable? At least two versions, each of which (unlike the fable of the Cock and the Pearl) belongs to the older Æsopic literature, seem to contain the essence of Dante's episode. In the branch assigned to Romulus the fable runs as follows: A mouse, wishing to cross a river, sought aid of a frog. The latter got a thick string, tied the mouse to his foot, and began to swim. But in mid-river, to snatch away the life of the wretched mouse, the frog dived down. Whilst the mouse was still struggling sturdily, a kite, flying down, caught the mouse in his claws, and carried him aloft with the hanging frog. For thus doth it befall those who think maliciously against others' welfare. The so-called Anonymus Neveleti bears more emphatically on the strife: A mouse, whose journey had brought him to a lake, met there a garrulous frog. The frog, having bargained for treasure, was eager to do harm. . . . So, then, foot is fastened to foot, but with no harmony of mind. Lo! they swim. The mouse is pulled, but the frog pulls. . . . The frog tries to go under, but the mouse stays up and withstands disaster. Fear itself lends force, is the moral.1 Again, 'in the version of Marie de France,' to quote Mr. Toynbee,2' the mouse is not drowned, but while she and the frog are struggling in the water the kite swoops down and carries off the frog, setting the mouse at liberty': The kite out of greed let go the mouse, but he kept the frog, ate him and devoured him, and the mouse is set free. If, now, a close resemblance is to be found between the story told by Dante of the present strife and the fable, Ciampolo, who was earlier compared to a frog (XXII, 26–33), must be left out. The two demons, then, struggling in the pitch and hauled out after they have been ungrappled by the heat, are like the mouse and the frog, while the kite is represented by the rescuing demons. The deceit in Dante is more complicated. In fine, his description bears only a superficial similarity to any known version of the Æsopic fable. 1 Cf. KENNETH MCKENZIE, Dante's References to Æsop, in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Dante Society, Cambridge, 1898 (Boston, 1900), pp. 6-7. Text as given by McKenzie : 'Muris iter rumpente lacu venit obvia muri 2 See his Dictionary, s.v. 'Esopo.' |