CHAPTER LIV THE GOOSE AMONG the usurers in Hell (whom Dante recognised only by their family blazons, painted on certain pouches that hung from their necks) the poet saw a member of the Florentine Ubbriachi and saw his arms. Vidine un' altra come sangue rossa Another of them saw I, red as blood Jacopo della Lana, Buti, and Benvenuto da Imola all agree as to this coat of arms, but Benvenuto is obviously 'calling names' when he says, 'That goose, a greedy bird, drank the blood of many.' symbolise. Dante hardly meant to To those who, without art or science but trusting to their inborn genius alone, break forth in an endeavour to sing loftily the loftiest things, our poet satirically recommends to refrain from such presumption, and if they are geese through their natural sluggishness let them not imitate the star-sweeping eagle! 2 1 Inf. XVII, 62-63. 2 De V. E. II, iv, 77-82, 'Et ideo confiteatur eorum stultitia, qui arte scientiaque immunes, de solo ingenio confidentes, ad summa summe canenda prorumpunt; a tanta præsuntuositate desistant, et si anseres naturali desidia sunt, nolint astripetam aquilam imitari.' There is more vitality in Dante's allusion to the 'goose' that saved Rome; for here the goose is conceived to be an agent of God, acting miraculously. In his conviction of Rome's divine destiny Dante cries, Did not God take a hand when the Frenchmen, having captured all Rome, were stealing upon the Capitol by night, and only the voice of a goose caused their coming to be known?' 1 Again, in the treatise De Monarchia, he refers to this occurrence, but the goose has assumed an angelic trait: it had never been seen there before! 'Livy,' declares Dante, 'and many illustrious writers bear harmonious testimony that when the Gauls, having taken the rest of the city and relying on the darkness, were stealthily climbing the Capitol, which alone remained to spare the Roman name from total destruction, a goose, never before seen there, cried that the Gauls were at hand, and awoke the guardians to the defence of the Capitol.' Thus, then, our author not only makes the goose a worker of miracles, - quite like Balaam's ass and many saints, but the goose is alone. Cf. Conv. IV, vi, 187-190 (cited, p. 313, note 2). Cf. also VIRGIL, Georg. I, 119, — and, better still, Ecl. IX, 36, Argutos inter strepere anser olores.' 1 Conv. IV, v, 160-164, ‘E non pose Iddio le mani proprie, quando li Franceschi, tutta Roma presa, prendeano di furto Campidoglio di notte, e solamente la voce d' un' oca fe' ciò sentire?' 2 De Mon. II, iv, 42–49, ‘Quumque Galli, reliqua urbe iam capta, noctis tenebris confisi, Capitolium furtim subirent, quod solum restabat ad ultimum interitum Romani nominis, anserem, ibi non ante visum, cecinisse Gallos adesse, atque custodes ad defensandum Capitolium excitasse, Livius et multi scriptores illustres concorditer contestantur.' See EDW. MOORE, Studies, First Series, p. 275 (2). Dante himself quotes Virgil's lines containing the argenteus anser (De Mon. II, iv, 56–57). CHAPTER LV THE COCK Lo gallo si è uno pollo, lo qual li omeni del mondo pò imprender verasi esenpli.- Tusco-Venetian Bestiary. ALTHOUGH the cock never became so common a basis for moralisation as the lion, the viper, and many other animals, his reputation passed unscathed through the Middle Ages. On a shrine of St. Taurin of Evreux the cock figures as the emblem of a lady (Liberality) who is scattering coins from a golden vase.3 St. Ambrose 4 has this to say: The crow of the cock is sweet at night and useful, too; for, like a good neighbour, he not only awakens the sleeper, but he warns the busy man, and comforts the wayfarer, crying out the passage of night with a cheerful meaning. At his voice the thief quits his wiles, and Dawn, awakened, lights up the heavens. At his voice the dreading sailor throws his sadness by, and oft the storm, driven up by the breath of evening, becomes mild. He urges to prayer, gives hope, lessens the pain of wounds, the burning of fever, 1 Translation, 'The cock is a fowl that can teach the men of the world truthful examples.' This bestiary gives the cock an excellent reputation, pp. 19-20. 2 Edited by Goldstaub and Wendriner. Halle, 1892. 8 See CAHIER, Mélanges, II, 31. • Hexameron, lib. V, cap. 88. restores to Jesus the faith of backsliders,1 sets the erring right again. The cock's crow warned Peter of his sin.' Dante, meeting his beloved Nino in Purgatory, hears Nino chide his wife Beatrice for having married, on Nino's death, Galeazzo of Milan. Now this Galeazzo belonged to the Visconti, who bore in their arms a viper,2 whereas Nino was of the Pisan Giudici (governors) of Gallura in Sardinia, and the Giudici bore in their arms a cock on a shield tierced in bend, azure, argent, and gules.3 Thus to an emblem of heraldry Dante transfers the traditionally good reputation of the cock, which he obviously contrasts with the ill fame of the viper. Since it was an almost universal custom to carve the arms of great nobles on their tombs, the words that Dante makes him utter about his wife are clear : Per lei assai di lieve si comprende, Quanto in femmina foco d' amor dura, Through her full easily is comprehended Afield, as would have made Gallura's cock. 1 An obvious reminiscence of Matthew xxvi, 34. 2 See chapter on 'Serpents,' pp. 332-333. 8 See WOODWARD, Heraldry, British and Foreign, vol. I, p. 96. Purg. VIII, 76–81. In these fictitious words of Nino Dante has blended a popular tradition with an heraldic emblem. Semblance of nature is still more remote when the poet turns to the cock of a so-called Æsopic fable: È da notare, che siccome dice nostro Signore, non si deono le margarite gittare innanzi ai porci; perocchè a loro non è prode, e alle margarite è danno; e, come dice Esopo poeta nella prima Favola, più è prode al gallo un granello di grano, che una margarita; e però questa lascia, e quello ricoglie.1 'It is to be observed that, as our Lord says, pearls should not be cast before swine, for to them it is of no profit and it is harmful to the pearls; and, as Æsop says in the first fable, of more profit to the cock is a grain of corn than a pearl; and therefore he will leave the pearl to pick up the corn.' Two points in this statement by Dante give a clew to the source of Dante's version of the fable of the Cock and the Pearl. First, Æsop figures as a poet; secondly, Dante says the 'first' fable. Although the fable of the Cock and the Pearl is the twelfth of the third book of Phædrus, this fable appears as the first in the collection of Romulus, a Carolingian writer, who offers the following version:2 In sterquilinio quidam gallinacius dum querit escam invenit margaritam in indigno loco iacentem. Quam ut vidit, sic ait: Bona res in stercore iaces. Te si cupidus invenisset, quo gaudio rapuisset, ut redires ad splendorem pristinum decoris tui. Ego te inveni in hoc loco iacentem; potius mihi escam 1 Conv. IV, xxx, 36–44. quero. Nec tibi ego 2 OESTERLEY, Romulus, Berlin, 1870; HERVIEUX, Fabulistes Latins, 2d ed., Paris, 1894, vol. II, p. 195. |