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note it when it is presented subjectively or as thought, but not put into some kind of verse or measure, or
regulated form. This is a curious experiment and worth studying. Take a passage from some famous poet;
write it out in pure simple prose, doing full justice to its real meaning, and if it still actually thrills or moves
as poetry, then it is of the first class. But if it has lost its glamour absolutely, it is second-rate or inferior; for
the best cannot be made out of mere words varnished with associations, be they of thought or feeling.
This is not such a far cry from the subject as might be deemed. Reading and feeling them subjectively, I am
often struck by the fact that in these witch traditions which I have gathered there is a wondrous poetry of
thought, which far excels the efforts of many modern bards, and which only requires the aid of some clever
workman in words to assume the highest rank. A proof of what I have asserted may be found in the fact that,
in such famous poems as the Finding of the Lyre, by James Russell Lowell, and that on the invention of the
pipe by Pan, by Mrs. Browning, that which formed the most exquisite and refined portion of the original
myths is omitted by both authors, simply because they missed or did not perceive it. For in the former we are
not told that it was the breathing of the god Air (who was the inspiring soul of ancient music, and the
Bellaria of modern witch-mythology) on the dried filament of the tortoise, which suggested to Hermes the
CHAPTER XII. Tana, The Moon-Goddess 38
 ARADIA, or the Gospel of the Witches
making an instrument wherewith he made the music of the spheres and guided the course of the planets. As
for Mrs. Browning, she leaves out Syrinx altogether, that is to say, the voice of the nymph still lingering in
the pipe which had been her body. Now to my mind the old prose narrative of these myths is much more
deeply poetical and moving, and far more inspired with beauty and romance, than are the well-rhymed and
measured, but very imperfect versions given by our poets. And in fact, such want of intelligence or
perception may be found in all the "classic" poems, not only of Keats, but of almost every poet of the age
who has dealt in Greek subjects.
Great license is allowed to painters and poets, but when they take a subject, especially a deep tradition, and
fail to perceive its real meaning or catch its point, and simply give us something very pretty, but not so
inspired with meaning as the original, it can hardly be claimed that they have done their work as it might, or,
in fact, should have been done. I find that this fault does not occur in the Italian or Tuscan witch-versions of
the ancient fables; on the contrary, they keenly appreciate, and even expand, the antique spirit. Hence I have
often had occasion to remark that it was not impossible that in some cases popular tradition, even as it now
exists, has been preserved more fully and accurately than we find it in any Latin writer.
Now apropos of missing the point, I would remind certain very literal readers that if they find many faults of
grammar, mis-spelling, and worse in the Italian texts in this book, they will not, as a distinguished reviewer
has done, attribute them all to the ignorance of the author, but to the imperfect education of the person who
collected and recorded them. I am reminded of this by having seen in a circulating library a copy of my
Legends of Florence, in which some good careful soul had taken pains with a pencil to correct all the
archaisms. Wherein he or she was like a certain Boston proof-reader, who in a book of mine changed the
spelling of many citations from Chaucer, Spenser, and others into the purest, or impurest, Webster; he being
under the impression that I was extremely ignorant of orthography. As for the writing in or injuring books,
which always belong partly to posterity, it is a sin of vulgarity as well as morality, and indicates what
people are more than they dream.
"Only a cad as low as a thief
Would write in a book or turn down a leaf,
Since 'tis thievery, as well is known,
To make free with that which is not our own.
CHAPTER XIII. Diana and the Children
"And there withall Diana gan appere
With bowe in hand right as an Hunteresse,
And saydê, 'Daughter, stint thine heavinesse!' [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]