Aradia or the Gospel of The Witches

CHAPTER XIII

DIANA AND THE CHILDREN

     There was in Florence in the oldest time a noble family, but grown so 
poor that their feast days were few and far between.  However, they dwelt 
in their old palace (which was in the street now called La Via Cittadella),
which was a fine old building, and so they kept up a brave show before the
world, when many a day they hardly had anything to eat.

     Round this palace was a large garden, in which stood an ancient marble
statue of Diana, like a beautiful woman who seemed to be running with a dog
by her side.  She held in her hand a bow, and on her forehead was a small 
moon.  And it was said that by night, when all was still, the statue became
like life and fled, and did not return till the moon set or the sun rose.

     The father of the family had two children, who were good and 
intelligent.  On day they came home with many flowers that had been given
to them, and the little girl said to the brother, "The beautiful lady with
the bow ought to have some of these!" 

     Saying this, they laid flowers before the statue and made a wreath,
which the boy placed on her head.

     Just then the great poet and magician Virgil, who 
knew everything about the god and fairies, entered the garden and said, 
smiling, "You have made the offering of flowers to the goddess quite 
correctly, as they did of old; all that remains is to pronounce the prayer
properly, and it is this:"
    So he repeated the 

Invocation of Diana

          Lovely Goddess of the bow!
          Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
          Of all hounds and of all hunting
          Thou who wakest in starry heaven
          When the sun is sunk in slumber
          Thou with moon upon thy forehead,
          Who the chase by night preferrest
          Unto hunting in the daylight,
          With thy nymphs unto the music
          Of the horn - thyself the huntress,
          And most powerful:  I pray thee
          Think, although but for an instant,
          Upon us who pray unto thee!

     Then Virgil taught them also the Scongiurasionespell to be 
uttered when good fortune or aught is specially required. - 

The Conjuration to Diana

          Fair goddess of the rainbow,
          Of the stars and of the moon!
          The queen most powerful
          Of hunters and the night!
             We beg of thee thy aid,
             That thou may'st give to us
          The best of fortune ever!

      Then he added the conclusion:

          If thou heed'st our evocation
          And wilt give good fortune to us,
          Then in proof give us a token!

     And having taught them this, Virgil departed.
     Then the children ran to tell their parents all that had happened, 
and the latter impressed it on them to keep it a secret, nor breathe a 
word or hint thereof to any one.  But what was their amazement when they 
found early the next morning before the statue a deer freshly killed, 
which gave them good dinners for many a day; nor did they want thereafter 
at any time game of all kinds, when the prayer had been devoutly pronounced.

     There was a neighbor of this family, a priest, who held in hate all 
the ways and worship of the gods of the old time, and whatever did not 
belong to his religion, and he, passing the garden one day, beheld the 
statue of Diana crowned with roses and other flowers.  And being in a rage,
and seeing in the street a decayed cabbage, he rolled it in the mud, and 
threw it all dripping at the face of the goddess, saying:-

           "Behold, thou vile beast of idolatry, 
           this is the worship which thou has from me, 
           and the devil do the rest for thee!"

     Then the priest heard a voice in the gloom where the leaves were 
dense, and it said:-
         
          "It is well!  I give thee warning, 
          since thou hast made thy offering, 
          some of the game to thee I'll bring; 
          Thou'lt have thy share in the morning."

     All that night the priest suffered from horrible dreams and dread, and
when at last, just before three o'clock, he fell asleep, he suddenly awoke
from a nightmare in which it seemed as if something heavy rested on his 
chest.  And something indeed fell from him and rolled on the floor.
And when he rose and picked it up, and looked at it by the light of the 
moon, he saw that it was a human head, half decayed.
     Another priest, who had heard his cry of terror, entered his room, and
having looked at the head, said, "I know that face!  It is of a man whom I 
confessed, and who was beheaded three months ago at Siena."
     And three days after, the priest who had insulted the goddess died.

     The foregoing tale was not given to me as belonging to the Gospel of 
the Witches, but as one of a very large series of traditions relating to 
Virgil as a magician.  But it has its proper place in this book, because it
contains the invocation to and incantation of Diana, these being remarkably
beautiful and original.  When we remember how these 'hymns' have been 
handed down or preserved by old women, and doubtless much garbled, changed,
and deformed by transmission, it cannot but seem wonderful that so much 
classic beauty still remains in them, as, for instance, in -

          Lovely Goddess of the bow!
          Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
          Thou who walk'st i' (in) starry heaven!

     Robert Browning was a great poet, but if we compare all the Italian 
witch-poems of, and to Diana, with the former's much admired speech of 
Diana-Artemis, it will certainly be admitted by impartial critics that the
spells are fully equal to the following by the bard -

          "I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts,
          And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
          By none whose temples whiten this the world:
          Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along,
          I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace,
          On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
          Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,
          And every feathered mother's callow brood,
          And all that love green haunts and loneliness."

     This is pretty, but it is only imitation, and neither in form or 
spirit really equal to the incantations, which are sincere on faith.  And 
it may here be observed in sorrow, yet in very truth, that in a very great
number of modern poetical handlings of classic mythic subjects, the writers
have, despite all their genius as artists, produced rococo work which will 
appear to be such to another generation, simply from their having missed 
the point, or omitted from ignorance something vital which the folk-lorist 
would probably not have lost.  Achilles may be 
admirably drawn, as I have seen him, in a Louis XIV. wig with a Turkish 
scimitar, but still one could wish that the designer had been a little more
familiar with Greek garments and weapons.

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