Zoological Mythology Volume Ii Part 2

"Impios parrae praecinentis omen Ducat et prgnans canis."

In Sicily, St Vitus is prayed to that he may keep the dogs chained--

"Santu Vitu, Santu Vitu, Io tri voti vi lu dicu: Va', chiamativi a lu cani Ca mi voli muzzicari."

And when tying the dog up, they say--

"Santu Vitu, Beddu e pulitu, Anghi di cira E di ferru filatu; Pi lu nuomu di Maria Ligu stu cani Ch' aju avanti a mia."

When the dog is tied up, they add--

"Fermati, cani Ca t' aju ligatu."[67]

In Italy and Russia, when the dog howls like a wolf, that is, plays the wolf, it forebodes misfortune and death. It is also narrated,[68]

that after the alliance between Caesar, Lepidus, and Antony, dogs howled like wolves.

When one is bitten by a dog[69] in Sicily, a tuft of hair is cut off the dog and plunged into wine with a burning cinder; this wine is given to be drunk by the man who has been bitten. In _Aldrovandi_,[70]

I read, on the other hand, that to cure the bite of a mad dog, it is useful to cover the wound with wolf's skin.

The dog is a medium of chastis.e.m.e.nt. Our Italian expressions, "Menare il cane per l'aia" (to lead the dog about the barn-floor), and "Dare il cane a menare" (to give the dog to be led about), are probably a reminiscence of the ignominious mediaeval punishment of Germany of carrying the dog, inflicted upon a n.o.ble criminal, and which sometimes preceded his final execution.[71] The punishment of laceration by dogs, which has actually been carried out more than once by the order of earthly tyrants, has its prototype in the well-known myth of Kerberos and the avenging dogs of h.e.l.l. Thus Pirithoos, who attempts to carry off Persephone from the infernal king of the Molossians, is torn to pieces by the dog Trikerberos. Euripides, according to the popular tradition, was lacerated in the forest by the avenging dogs of Archelaos. It is told of Domitian, that when an astrologer on one occasion predicted his approaching death, he asked him whether he knew in what way he himself would die; the astrologer answered that he would be devoured by dogs (death by dogs is also predicted in a story of the _Pentamerone_); Domitian, to make the oracle false, ordered him to be killed and burned; but the wind put the flames out, and the dogs approached and devoured the corpse. Boleslaus II., king of Poland, in the legend of St Stanislaus, is torn by his own dogs while wandering in the forest, for having ordered the saint's death. The Vedic monster cushnas, the pestilential dog Sirius of the summer skies, and the dog Kerberos of the nocturnal h.e.l.l, vomit flames; they chastise the world, too, with pestilential flames; and the pagan world tries all arts, praying and conjuring, to rid itself of their baleful influences. But this dog is immortal, or rather it generates children, and returns to fill men with terror in a new, a more direct, and a more earthly form in the Christian world. It is narrated, in fact, that before the birth of St Dominic, the famous inventor of the tortures of the Holy Inquisition (a truly satanic Lucifer), his mother, being pregnant of him, dreamed that she saw a dog carrying a lighted brand about, setting the world on fire. St Dominic truly realised his mother's dream; he was really this incendiary dog; and, therefore, in the pictures that represent him, the dog is always close to him with its lighted brand. Christ is the Prometheus enlarged, purified, and idealised; and St Dominic, the monstrous Vulcan, deteriorated, diminished, and fanaticised, of the Christian Olympus. The dog, sacred in pagan antiquity to the infernal deities, was consecrated to St Dominic the incendiary, and to Rocco, the saint who protects the sick of the plague. The Roman feasts in honour of Vulcan (Volca.n.a.lia) fell in the month of August; and the Roman Catholic Church fetes in the month of August the two saints of the dogs of the fire and the plague, St Dominic and St Rocco.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Leukophos; a verse of Vilkelmus Brito defines it in a Latin strophe given in Du Cange--

"Tempore quo neque nox neque lux sed utrumque videtur;"

and further on--

"Interque _canem distare lupumque_."

According to Pliny and Solinus, the shadow of the hyena makes the dog dumb, _i.e._, the night disperses the twilight; the moon vanishes.

[30] The dog was sacred to the huntress Diana, whom we know to be the moon, hence the Latin proverb, "Delia nota canibus."

[31] Indrasya dutir is.h.i.+ta carami maha ichanti pa?ayo nidhin va?; str.

2.

[32] Rasaya ataram paya?si; str. 2.--Aya? nidhi? sarame adribudhno gobhir acvebhir vasubhir ny?ish?a?; str. 7.--Svasara? tva k?i?avai ma punar ga apa te gava? subhage bha?ama; str. 9.--Naha? veda bhrat?itva?

no svas?itvam indro vidur angirasac caghora?; str. 10.

[33] Indrasyangirasam cesh?au vidat sarama tanayaya dhasim b?ihaspatir bhinad adrim vidad ga? sam usriyabhir vavacanta nara?; str. 3.

[34] ?ita? yati sarama ga avindat.--?itasya patha sarama vidad gah; _?igv._ v. 45, 7, 8.

[35] Apo yad adrim puruhuta dardar avir bhuvat sarama purvya? te; _?igv._ iv. 16, 8.

[36] Vidad yadi sarama rug?am adrer mahi patha? purvya? sadhryak ka?

agra? nayat supady akshara?am acha ravam prathama ?anati gat; _?igv._ iii. 31, 6.

[37] vi. 9.

[38] v. 62.

[39] vi. 10.

[40] Cfr. the Vedic text above quoted.

[41] In the _Tuti-Name_, instead of the dog with the bone or piece of meat, we have the fox. The dog who sees his shadow in the water; the fearless hero who, in Tuscan stories, dies when he sees his own shadow; the black monster (the shadow) who, in numerous stories, presents himself instead of the real hero to espouse the beautiful princess, carry our thoughts back to Indras, who, in the _?igvedas_, after having defeated the monster, flees away over the rivers, upon seeing something which is probably the shadow of V?itras, killed by him, or his own shadow. In the _aitar. Brahm._ iii. 2, 15, 16, 20, this flight of Indras is also recorded, and it is added, that Indras hides himself, and that the Pitaras (_i.e._, the souls of the departed) find him again. Indras thinks that he has killed V?itras, but really has not killed him; then the G.o.ds abandon him; the Marutas alone (as dogs friendly to the b.i.t.c.h Sarama) remain faithful to him.

The monster killed by Indras in the morning rises again at eve.

According to other Vedic accounts, Indras is obliged to flee, stung by remorse, having committed a brahmanicide.

[42] Ati drava sarameyau cvanau catarakshau cabalau sadhuna patha atha pit?int suvidatra? upehi--Yau te cvanau yama raks.h.i.+tarau caturakshau pathiraks.h.i.+ n?icakshasau--Uru?asav asut?ipa udumbalau yamasya dutau carato ?ana? anu--Tav asmabhya? d?icaye suryaya punar datam asum adyeha bhadram; _?igv._ x. 14, 10-12.

[43] Ni shvapaya mithud?icau; _?igv._ i. 29, 3.--The Petropolitan Dictionary explains the word _mith._ by "abwechselend sichtbar."

[44] Yad ar?una sarameya data? picanga yachase viva bhra?anta ?ish?aya upa srakveshu bapsato ni shu svapa; stena? raya sarameya taskara? va puna?sara stotrin indrasya rayasi kim asman duchunayase ni shu svapa; _?igv._ vii. 55, 2, 3.

[45] i. 657, 666.

[46] Canto 62.

[47] Thus Hecuba, the wife of Priam, after having suffered cruel tribulation as a woman, in Ovid--

"Perdidit infelix hominis post omnia formam Externasque novo latratu terruit auras."

In the _Breviarium Romanum_, too, in the offices of the dead, G.o.d is besought not to consign to the beasts (ne tradas bestiis, &c.) the souls of His servants.

[48] Eta u tye patayanti cvayatava indram dipsanti dipsavo 'dabhyam--Ulukayatu? cuculukayatu? ?ahi cvayatum uta kokayatum supar?ayatum gridhrayatu? d?ishadeva pra m?i?a raksha indra; _?igv._ vii. 104, 20, 22.

[49] ?ambhayatam abhito rayata?; _?igv._ i. 182, 4.

[50] Apa cvana? cnathish?ana sakhayo dirgha?ihvyam--Apa cvanam aradhasam hata makha? na bh?igava?; _?igv._ ix. 101, 1, 13.

[51] Avartya cuna antra?i pece na deveshu vivide mar?itaram apacya?

?ayam ama?iyamanam adha me cyeno madhv a ?abhara; _?igv._ iv. 18, 13.

The bird who brings honey has evidently here a phallical meaning, as also the intestine, the part that is inside of now the dog, now the fish, and now the a.s.s (all of which are phallical symbols), desired as a delicacy by the women of fairy tales, must be equivalent to the _madhu_ brought by the bird.

[52] In the fifth story of the fourth book of the _Pentamerone_, the bird does the same that a dog does in the third story of the third book; the bird brings a knife, the dog brings a bone, and the imprisoned princess, by means of this knife and bone, is enabled to make a hole in the prison, and to free herself.

[53] In the _Pentamerone_, i. 7, the enchanted b.i.t.c.h brings to the princess news of the young hero.

[54] In the seventh Esthonian story, the man with the black horse binds three dogs tightly; if they get loose, no one will be able to keep them back.--In the _Edda_, Thrymer, the prince of the giants, keeps the grey dogs bound with golden chains.

[55] Einen gelblichen Hund mit vier Augen oder einen weissen mit gelben Ohren; _Vendidad_, viii. 41, _et seq._, Spiegel's version. And Anquetil, describing the _Baraschnon no schabe_, represents the purifying dog as follows:--"Le Mobed prend le baton a neuf nuds, entre dans les Keischs et attache la cuillere de fer au neuvieme nud. L'impur entre aussi dans les Keischs. On y amene un chien; et si c'est une femme que l'on purifie, comme elle doit etre nue, c'est aussi une femme qui tient le chien. L'impur ayant la main droite sur sa tete et la gauche sur le chien, pa.s.se successivement sur les six premieres pierres et s'y lave avec l'urine que lui donne le Mobed."--In the _Katyay. Su._ the question is seriously discussed whether a dog, who was seen to fast on the fourteenth day of the month, did so on account of religious penitence.--Cfr. Muir's _Sansk?it Texts_, i. 365.

[56] Dog and horse, with bites and kicks, kill the monster doe and free the two brother-heroes in the _Pentamerone_, i. 9.