WEBVTT - Funeral for a Bug 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.120 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.720 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.799 And today I wanted to start off by talking about 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.920 a weird legend about the Roman poet Virgil and an 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:30.120 insect funeral. Uh, Robert, you ready for some Virgil talk? 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.800 Let's do it, okay. So. So, Virgil was a poet 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.240 who lived in the first century BC, during the Augustine 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.080 periods of early Imperial Rome. And uh, you might know 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.680 him best from his most famous work, the epic poem 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.599 The Aeneid, which is about sort of the founding lineage 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.640 of Rome and the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who, 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.959 after the Trojan War, travels from Troy and eventually becomes 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.560 the ancestor of the Roman people. Virgil is often considered 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.840 one of the greatest Latin poets, and he was wildly 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.120 popular during his own lifetime. Uh. You know, he he 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.559 received commendations from from kings and the wealthy, and and 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.479 you know, everybody thought like, wow, this this guy has 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.640 just got the juice. And I had Virgil on my 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.600 mind a lot last year because Rachel and I were 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.080 rereading Dante's Divine Comedy, and if you'll recall, of course, 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.000 Virgil is Dante the Pilgrim's guide through Hell and Purgatory 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.839 in the Divine Comedy. So the spirit of Virgil he's 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.360 been living out the centuries in Limbo because though he 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.160 was a very virtuous man, he's one of the virtuous Pagans. 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.080 He was never baptized as a Christian, so he can't 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:43.760 go to heaven. He's got to hang out in this 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.080 sort of anti chamber of hell where everybody sits around 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.960 sighing because nothing interesting is ever happening to them. I 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.040 have to admit that I tend to when anybody mentions Virgil, 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.960 that's the first place my mind goes is Dante's Inferno, 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.480 which is it's probably not fair. It's like if you 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.080 were too mentioned the name of Socrates and there was 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:03.800 someone were to go, oh, yeah, yeah, he's in Bill 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.120 and Ted's excellent Adventure. That's exactly That's exactly where I 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.680 knew you were going with that. Vill and Ted. Yeah, um, yeah, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.000 that that is pretty good because well though it's slightly 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.919 different because it's not a it's he's not at all 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.239 parodied in the Divine Comedy. In fact, I would say 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.760 it's exactly the opposite. In the Divine Comedy, he is 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:31.200 he's revered, Yes, he's he's reimagined as this like superhuman wizard. 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.760 For for Dante, he uh, Virgil is the embodiment of 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.400 wisdom and reason. So for the intended readers of the 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.560 Divine Comedy, we're supposed to understand that Virgil is like 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.080 a ten out of ten platinum level cool beast. He 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.120 is just like this ultimate wizard of knowledge and about 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:52.600 half of the state you do remember how like like 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.760 basically every other time Dante talks in the first two 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.920 books of the Divine Comedy, it's just to say, like, Virgil, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.919 you are so right, I would never doubt your wisdom. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:03.880 Tell me more, you know. And and it kind of 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.200 stinks in because I remember when we got to the 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.840 end of the Purgatory. Oh, and Virgil does not get 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.240 to move on to to Heaven with Dante. He has 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.480 to stay behind and Beatrice takes him on from there. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.440 We're really mad that Virgil didn't get to go to heaven. Yeah, yeah, no, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.720 I mean so much, so much time is devoted to 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.800 him and it also so much is stripped away at 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.640 that point. You know, it's like it's it's hard to 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:30.359 follow Dante and into Paradiso just because you know that 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.640 there there aren't gonna be any demons uh playing trumpets 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:35.760 with their bombs or anything. There's not going to be 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.360 uh you know, and monsters so much, and Virgil is 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.320 not going to be there. So it's it's you know, 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.280 it's part three in a series is always tough. Yeah, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.040 I agree, you know, the trilogy is a hard sell 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.760 to to complete with dignity. Uh. And but I think 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.920 for modern readers that sense of injustice about Virgil that 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.200 is interpreted, uh, you know by the characters in the 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.400 Inferno as you know, perfect divine justice. It's the one 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.000 person version of the dynamic that plays out throughout the 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.520 whole thing. Whereas they're going through hell, it just seems like, wow, 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.760 this is really unfair. But anyway, long before Virgil was 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.640 guiding Dante up the Mountain of Purgatory and his postmortem 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:20.320 shade form, people were telling lots of legends about his life, 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.560 and one of those legends is that once at his 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:29.560 home in Rome, Virgil built a tomb and held an 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.120 extravagant funeral for a dead fly, like a fly, as 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.000 in the insect with six legs and wings. Uh. This 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.520 story is very probably untrue, and we'll get to why 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.520 that is in a bit, but first I wanted to 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.120 explore some of the details, and for this I was 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.520 reading an article by George Pendall in Cabinet Magazine in 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.360 two thousand seven called Virgil's Fly, and he describes the 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.800 legend in the following way quote. Held in the grounds 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.960 of Virgil's home on Rome's Esqualine Hill, the funeral attracted 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.960 the great and good of the city. Dirges were sung 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.919 and tributes read. Virgil's patron, Mycenas, delivered a lengthy and 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.880 moving eulogy to the departed insect, and Virgil was himself 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.440 said to have uttered a few of his exquisite verses 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.000 over the tiny carcass. A tomb had been erected and 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.600 the lifeless body of the fly was placed within it, 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.280 to the whales and moans of the professional mourners. So 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.040 lavish were the commemorations that the cost was estimated at 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.119 over eight hundred thousand sisters. Is So that's the gist. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.680 According to this story, Virgil and his close friends spend 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.080 huge amounts of money and effort to celebrate the life 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.720 and memory of an insect, concluding with the insects burial 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.320 in a marble tomb. Why on earth would this be? Well? 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.000 The legend itself also contains an answer to this, so 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.080 to read from Pendle again quote but the reason for 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.520 the funeral was not due to extravagance, eccentricity, or even emotion. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.480 Having defeated Julius Caesar's assassins at the Battle of Philippi, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.680 the Second Triumvirate was at that very moment engaged in 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.479 confiscating the estates of the rich and dividing them among 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.560 the war veterans returning from the battlefield. Only one exception 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.240 was given. If the estate held a burial plot, it 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.039 was not to be touched by burying his housefly. Virgil 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:27.279 saved his house. So here it has transformed into a 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:32.520 classic one of our favorite genres, loophole fiction. Remember when 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.320 we did the Anthology of Horror segment in October on 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.120 deals with the Devil, and about how many of these stories, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.080 I think, especially later, deal with the Devil's stories less 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.240 so in the earlier ones. They're about somebody saving the 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.400 day by figuring out a loophole that they can exploit 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.520 to get out of their end of a pact with Satan, 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.600 and I wonder again, what's so appealing about this kind 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.880 of plot resolution. It seems like maybe this would be 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.040 the kind of thing that's especially interesting to two people 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.080 who live in a more litigious kind of culture. Could 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.560 be I can also imagine that if you're if you're, 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.360 if you've ever taken advantage of a loophole, it probably 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:15.200 helps out if you demonize the legal authority to some degree, 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.160 if you make them into a devil, because in all 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.000 these stories, it's the loophole that saves your soul, whereas um, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.200 I think there are plenty of cases in in real 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.040 in real life where the loophole might have the opposite effect. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:33.800 You know, the loophole is the is the refuge of 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.000 of less savory individuals at times, right cheaters and scammers 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.600 with crafty lawyers to help help them get out of 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.800 trouble by exploiting some kind of you know, loophole in 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.840 the wording of something is it isn't that always like 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.640 that's always a really frustrating thing when somebody uh evades 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:55.000 the obvious spirit of justice by exploiting the exact wording 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.480 of something you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.040 um yeah, So I can't have a wonder if there's 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.480 there's some connection there. You know, you make your stories 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.400 about cheating the devil with your loopholes, and then you 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.600 know you feel better about the sort of implied devil 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.240 that you're cheating through your own loophole usage. Well, it's 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.600 actually funny, there is uh. In this Pendle article, he 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.200 also talks about a medieval legend about Virgil. And we'll 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.880 get into more of these legends about Virgil's life as 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.280 we go on, But one of these medieval legends about 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.800 Virgil is that Virgil freeze a demon from There's like 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.320 a devil trapped in a bottle, and Virgil lets it 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.800 out so that it will empower him to do something great. 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.920 I think maybe he uses its powers to to get 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.880 a long road paved or something like that. But anyway, 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.199 once he has has used this demon power, now I 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.520 think the demon is supposed to get his into the bargain, 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.160 is going to do something really bad. But first Virgil's like, wow, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.559 you know you're so powerful. Could you show me again 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:55.880 how you fit your frame into that bottle, so the 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.600 devil does, and then he corks it back up so 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.080 he gets to have his magic and keep the genie 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.960 in the bottle as well. Oh that's great. I don't 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:05.800 know how to climb into an oven, and I've never 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.800 sat on a shovel. That's some jack frost, Jack frost, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.640 that's from some ivanushka right there. So in that spirit 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:19.000 that there's obviously this interesting process by which after Virgil's death, 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.760 remember he lived in the first century b c. In 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.199 the centuries after his death, his poetry was greatly admired 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.560 and revered, But not just his poetry, he himself was 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.280 greatly admired and revered and took on the aspects of 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.240 a saint in many ways, even though he had been 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.880 a pagan. Uh. There's an interesting note in in his 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.680 Cabinet article where Pendle shares this fact that kind of 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.439 helps make more sense of the almost absurd reverence shown 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.640 for Virgil in the Divine Comedy In these in centuries 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.640 after his death, many Romans and and later Italians in 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.520 the Middle Ages thought of Virgil as possessing a literally 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.560 supernatural or near supernatural genius. That there was something magical 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.400 about his poetry the same way people would feel there 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.960 is magic in the holy text of their religion. And 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.120 one one clear illustration of this is that in the 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:12.440 second century CE, under the Antonines, Uh, there had arisen 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.080 this form of divination. And we've done episodes on divination 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.840 in the past. You know, there are various ways of 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.800 trying to sort of get turned some sort of noise 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:27.040 or random input into an interpreted type of information about 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.439 hidden knowledge. You know, what's going to happen the future, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.040 or some other thing you want to know but can't uh. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:38.239 And and so the Virgil's poetry was itself used for divination, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.480 and so people would randomly select passages from the in 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.440 need and then read those passages as some kind of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.560 prediction about their future or statement about some other kind 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.680 of hidden knowledge. Uh Pendle writes. Quote. It is said 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.480 that these sortes Virgiliana or Virgilian lots were consulted by 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.520 both the emperor's Hadrian and Severus, and with each consultation, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.000 virgil memory began to take on an increasingly mystical air. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.600 But anyway to get back to the story about Virgil 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.520 and the fly, So again, this story is almost certainly 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.720 not true. There are elements of it that fit within 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.360 known history. Apparently Virgil did actually have a house on 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.520 the esqual Line Hill the Second Triumph for it was 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.160 actually engaged in seizing a states so they could be 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.920 given to returning veterans from military campaigns. But that's just 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.439 the accurate stuff about the setting. The main reason the 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.920 story is probably untrue is simply that there is no 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:36.160 contemporary evidence or record of it. Uh. Nobody anywhere near 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.679 Virgil's lifetime mentions anything about it. It only shows up 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.200 in much much later sources. Rather, it seems to be 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.680 one of those legends that accumulates on a you know, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.599 sort of gloamse onto a revered historical figure due to 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.600 a chain of associative thinking. So what's the chain? Well, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:59.199 that brings us to a an absurd and absurdly interesting 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.520 Latin poem called the q Lex, which means uh, I 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.560 think you can interpret it as like the gnat or 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.080 the fly. Q Lex is also a genus name for 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.680 certain types of mosquitoes, so I think it means like 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.400 a flying insect. And so this is a poem that 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.960 was published sometime after Virgil's death, and it was attributed 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.680 to him as part of his juvenile yad. It was 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.600 widely said, Okay, so this is something that Virgil actually wrote, 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.280 but he wrote it when it was young, and that's 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.880 that's why it's maybe not as good as his other poetry. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.120 Modern scholars, I think, mostly really doubt that Virgil actually 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.679 wrote this. It would technically be a poem in the 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:42.760 pastoral genre. So that's poetry about the supposedly blissful, uncomplicated 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.920 life of people in the countryside. It's usually about shepherds 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.120 or herdsman, often a lot of references to flowers and 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.199 naps and clouds and cool waters, the idols of pan 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.080 And it made me think about, how, you know, so 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.600 for hundreds of years the pastoral poem from the Classical period, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.440 even into into the Renaissance was and well, actually i'd 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.840 say even into the Romantic poetry era. There there is 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.679 this tendency to fall back on this classic genre of 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.319 stuff about the fields and the simple life of shepherds 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:18.679 and all that, uh and and how great it is. 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.520 And I wonder if this is sort of realized in 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:27.559 modern culture, in our desire for like uh, simple, aesthetically 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.400 gentle content like the Great British bake offf Is that 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.440 the pastoral poetry of the modern era? Yeah, yeah, perhaps, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:41.800 you know, um just sort of like soothing and non offensive. Perhaps, uh, 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.280 you know, just just you know, it's not even really escapism. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.000 It's just I mean, I guess to a certain extent 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:50.040 it is escapism. But yeah, perhaps I can see that connection. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.679 I don't know it connected in my brain. But so 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.920 there's a plot in this poem, the Colex. It is 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.720 widely regarded as absolutely ridiculous, but here is how it goes. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.400 A chep bird goes out in the morning to take 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.880 his flocks to pasture, and there's some standard pastoral poetry 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.280 musing on how the simple life of a shepherd living 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.920 in the fields is so much better than the fraud 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.160 life of a rich man, because it's better to throw 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.640 your body down in the tender grass and lay your 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.880 head among the flower buds than to be consumed with 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.680 the grief and the greed that curdles the hearts of 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.120 the rich and powerful. So the shepherd is living this nice, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.920 idyllic life. He takes his flock to a fountain in 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.040 the woods, and there he falls asleep, lying in the shade. 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.960 But while he's asleep, a giant, horrible snake slithers up. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:41.640 It's coming to the fountain where it likes to lie 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.080 in the mud, and it decides it's going to bite 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.280 the shepherd in his sleep and kill him. But just 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.560 before the snake attacks, a gnat buzzes down and stings 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.040 the shepherd on the eye, and this wakes him up, 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.760 and the shepherd crushes the gnat, but it also wakes 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.040 him up just in time to see the snake and 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.480 to save himself. So he beats the snake to death 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.560 with a piece of wood, which I would say, in 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.960 reality is almost never necessary. Even if a snake is dangerous, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.040 you can run away from it, right, But this is 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.240 a storybook snake, and you know how they do. They 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.280 do things like wrap around you and tie you to 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.440 a tree or swallow you hole. So um, you know, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.280 within the context of the story, maybe it's justified, right, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.440 So yeah, he gets this. This piece of wood beats 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.080 the snake into a bloody pulp. And then later the 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.040 shepherd goes to sleep again and the ghost of the 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.360 nat appears. It comes to him in a dream, and 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.440 the gnat choose him out for not being grateful. He's 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.120 like why do you crush me? I saved your life? 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.560 And the shepherd wakes up, and he feels remorse for 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.320 what he's done, and he builds a tomb in honor 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.280 of the gnat, and then decorates the tomb with flowers 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.160 and fruit. And so, to read briefly from the tomb 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.200 section of the poem, it says for him at length, 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.960 did heedful care the toil begun completing, gathered up the 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.560 piled material, and with a plenteous mound of earth, a 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.600 tomb arose in circle shaped around it, placing stone of 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.440 marble smooth, he plants it, mindful of his constant care, 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.320 and growing here throughout the brilliant ring a cantus is 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.320 and bashful roses too, and every kind of violet. And 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.920 then there are a bunch of lines about flowers. I'm 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:26.200 gonna skip towards the end of that flower section. Um 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.760 the admiranthe is here, And grapes which large do cluster 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.600 ever flowering Piccrus to Narcissus isn't absent there in whom 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.440 his beauty's radiance from cupids fire for limbs his own 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.680 begot a hot desire. And all the flowers that blooming seasons. No, 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.360 with these the mound is planted, or then on the 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.200 front is placed the inscription, which asserts the letters, saying 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.800 it with silent speech, Oh, tiny gnat, the keeper of 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.680 the flocks, doth pay to the deserving such a thing 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.160 the duty of a ceremonial tomb, in payment for the 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.360 gift of life to him. All right, well, well there 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.439 you have it, a poem about honoring the the gnat 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.640 that saved him from the snake when he was sleeping 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.080 on the job. This is something I'm actually confused about. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.000 Our shepherds supposed to just sleep while they're watching their flocks, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.720 or they're not supposed to be watching I don't know, 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.520 but you do see it is part of that pastoral 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.320 sort of image, you know, like we've all encountered some 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.600 version of that before, which I'm guessing most of that 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.919 is just, yeah, it's pining for a this um, this 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.479 presumed idyllic lifestyle in the country where it's like, oh, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.480 you're just looking after sheep. It's just like a nap 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.160 all day, that's all. Just all it is, glossing over 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.440 all the other stuff that comes being a shepherd. Yeah. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.359 But anyway, once again it seems that modern scholars do 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.120 not accept that Virgil actually wrote this poem. Virgil did 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.439 write pastoral poetry, for example, in his ecologues. There's this 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.159 great part of in the I think the tenth eclogue 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.920 where he concludes with a wonderful passage decided bedtime, where 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.640 he writes, come let us rise. The shade is wont 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.800 to be baneful to singers. Baneful is the shade cast 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.840 by the juniper crops. Sickened too in the shade, now homeward, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.439 having fed your fill, eve star is rising. Go my, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:25.160 she goats go. Okay. I guess that's that's pretty good. 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.320 But but yeah, if you're just going off of this passage, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.600 I don't know if you'd you'd really buy Dante's hype 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.320 for Virgil. Um, well, I mean, she goes part is nice, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.280 that is the good part, and it is in translation. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.680 I think, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. I mean, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.239 for every type of poetry and translation, there's a lot 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.800 of stuff that's lost. But anyway, so the coolex, there's 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:50.600 a good chance it was written by someone else and 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.760 then published under Virgil's name, and it may well have 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.160 had some kind of other meaning. Like a veiled meaning 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:58.959 as a political allegory, though I didn't follow the threads 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.320 on that. But despite the doubt about the authorship, the 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.479 poem seems to have given rise to all kinds of 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:11.240 bizarre fly legends associated with Virgil. Um so to read 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.439 a segment from Pendel that I thought this was amazing quote. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.719 One of the most popular Neapolitan myths held that Virgil 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.960 had created a bronze fly the size of a frog 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.640 and placed it on one of the gates of Naples. 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:28.280 The talisman remained there for eight years, during which time 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.040 no flies could enter the city. In a similar vein, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.160 armies attacking Naples were said to have been harassed by 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.800 swarms of flies sent after them by the poet. The 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.639 fly would become Virgil's magical familiar over the ensuing years, 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.720 never far from any tale of his exploits, and that 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.120 was not all. Possibly due to this control of pestilence, 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.040 Virgil was said to have created baths that cured all illnesses, 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.880 and a butcher's block on which meat stayed fresh for 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.560 six weeks. No longer renowned as the master of grammar 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.879 and fil aosophy, Virgil's achievements were put down to his 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.320 mathematical knowledge. In only a few centuries, Virgil had gone 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.119 from being the preeminent poet of the Roman Empire to 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.840 a Neapolitan enchanter with the pensiont for magical insects. And 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.080 there's all kinds of fabulous stuff about medieval legends about 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.760 Virgil becoming more of a necromancer type figure, that he's 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.479 got all these strange magical powers like that, you know 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.240 that he commands the insects of the air and cast 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.080 them down upon his enemies or can save you from them. 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.879 And uh, and I love that that that this was Like, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:38.080 I don't know if there was anything in his actual 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.359 life to associate him with flies. It's only this poem 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.960 that he probably didn't even actually right and isn't actually 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.120 very good, that was attributed to him later that gave 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:52.600 rise to all these strange stories. Wow, that's something. Yeah, 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.520 I don't I don't recall it, you know, picking up 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.760 on the the idea of the wizard Virgil. But but 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.200 now I'm fascinated by it. Well. I think one thing 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:04.480 is by the Middle Ages he had these broadly understood 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.399 wizard associations. But I think Dante was sort of moving 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.520 back against that and and saying like, no, let's fit 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.840 him more into the Christian cosmology and say that he's 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.680 more this beacon of reason and wisdom in the pagan world. 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.639 But we do see this wizardization taking more hold with 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.120 other figures, like Roger Bacon comes to mind. And we've 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.520 talked about this on the show before. Oh yeah, I 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.359 remember in one of our previous episodes we sort of 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.560 concluded that maybe one of the greatest contributions of Roger 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.480 Bacon as a as a you know, man of great 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:39.919 learning in the Middle Ages and the thirteenth century was 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.640 that he was very open to sources of knowledge from 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.119 all over the world. So a lot of what he 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.520 did was say, like apply things that he learned from 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.680 texts from the medieval Muslim world, like the texts of 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:57.600 mbanel Haytham and other things, or like, uh, studying objects 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.159 brought to him from from countries afar. So he was 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.119 sort of a good collector of knowledge from many places. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.840 But somehow gets this, I don't know, gets this label 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.080 affixed to him like he's some kind of wonder worker, 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.919 which he wasn't really in life, right, I mean, he 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.200 was it seems like he was a very impressive individual. 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.439 But yeah, he's begome. He instantly becomes elevated to like 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.960 arch alchemist status in some of these tellings, you know, 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:23.720 he takes on all the guys of some sort of 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.680 a mad scientist in a in a like a serial adventure. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.439 The main reason I think I was originally inspired to 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.480 look into this topic and do this episode about insects 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:43.159 and funerals was when I read an interesting article on 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.760 Atlas Obscura that was also by George Pendel. The same 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:48.800 writer is that Cabinet magazine article about Virgil and the fly, 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.800 And this article is on the broader topic of insects 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.040 and funerary rights. Yeah, this was a good, good article 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.840