WEBVTT - From the Vault: Funeral for a Bug 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.879 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.920 Time for a classic from the vault. This one originally 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.720 aired on January one. It was called Funeral for a Bug. 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.599 I think this was all literally about funerals for bugs? 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.119 Or will we get into some stuff about the Roman 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.480 poet Virgil. Yeah, yeah, and even know Virgil's there, It's 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.320 going to be a party, So so here we go, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:36.240 let's have a listen. Welcome just about to blow your mind, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:45.560 the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.240 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.559 I'm Joe McCormick, and today I wanted to start off 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.000 by talking about a weird legend about the Roman poet 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.040 Virgil and an insect funeral. Uh, Robert, you ready for 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.520 some Virgil talk? Okay? So, So Virgil was a poet 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.319 who lived in the first century BC during the Augustine period, 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.000 so early Imperial Rome. And uh, you might know him 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.120 best from his most famous work, the epic poem The Aenead, 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.839 which is about sort of the founding lineage of Rome 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.640 and the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who after 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.800 the Trojan War, travels from Troy and eventually becomes the 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.480 ancestor of the Roman people. Virgil is often considered one 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.160 of the greatest Latin poets, and he was wildly popular 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.280 during his own lifetime. Uh you know, he he received 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.600 commendations from from kings and the wealthy, and and you know, 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.720 everybody thought like, wow, this this guy has just got 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.440 the juice. And I had Virgil on my mind a 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.560 lot last year because Rachel and I were rereading Dante's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.960 Divine Comedy. And if you'll recall, of course, Virgil is 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.000 Dante the pilgrim's guy through hell and purgatory in the 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.920 Divine Comedy. So the spirit of Virgil he's been living 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.480 out the centuries in Limbo because though he was a 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.000 very virtuous man, he's one of the virtuous Pagans. He 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.920 was never baptized as a Christian, so he can't go 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:15.760 to heaven. He's got to hang out in this sort 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.359 of anti chamber of hell where everybody sits around sighing 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.840 because nothing interesting is ever happening to them. I have 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.760 to admit that I tend to when anybody mentions Virgil 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.680 that's the first place my mind goes is Dante's Inferno, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.280 which is it's probably not fair. It's like if you 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.799 were to mention the name of Socrates and there was 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.520 someone were to go, oh, yeah, yeah, he's in Bill 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.840 and Ted's Excellent Adventure. That's exactly That's exactly where I 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.120 knew you were going with that. Villa and Ted. Yeah, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.520 um yeah, that that is pretty good because well though 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.280 it's slightly different because it's not a it's he's not 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.519 at all parodied in the Divine Comedy. In fact, I 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.520 would say it's exactly the opposite. In the Divine Comedy. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:03:00.720 He is. He's revered, Yes, he's he's reimagined as this 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:06.280 like superhuman wizard. For for Dante, he uh, Virgil is 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.520 the embodiment of wisdom and reason. So for the intended 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.400 readers of the Divine Comedy, we're supposed to understand that 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.800 Virgil is like a ten out of ten platinum level 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.880 cool beast. He is just like this ultimate wizard of 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.320 knowledge and about half of the state you do remember 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.920 how like like basically every other time Dante talks in 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.520 the first two books of The Divine Comedy, it's just 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.360 to say like Virgil, you are so right, I would 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.120 never doubt your wisdom. Tell me more, you know. And 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.000 and it kind of stinks in because I remember when 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.520 we got to the end of the Purgatory. Oh, and 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.000 Virgil does not get to move on to to Heaven 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.400 with Dante. He has to stay behind and Beatrice takes 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.520 him on from there. We're really mad that Virgil didn't 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.440 get to go to heaven. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.880 so much, so much time is devoted to him, and 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:55.839 it also so much is stripped away at that point. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.360 You know, it's like if it's hard to follow Dante 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.320 and into pared Ceo, just because you know that there 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.480 there aren't gonna be any demons uh playing trumpets with 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.760 their bombs or anything. There's not going to be yeah, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.160 you know, and monsters so much, and Virgil is not 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.200 going to be there. So it's it's you know, it's 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.640 part three in a series is always tough. Yeah, I agree, 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.240 you know, the trilogy is a hard sell to to 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.040 complete with dignity. Uh. And but I think for modern 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:29.240 readers that sense of injustice about Virgil that is interpreted, uh, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.960 you know by the characters in the Inferno, as you know, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.000 perfect divine justice. It's the one person version of the 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.520 dynamic that plays out throughout the whole thing. Where as 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:39.359 they're going through hell, it just seems like, wow, this 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:43.479 is really unfair. Yeah. But anyway, long before Virgil was 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.360 guiding Dante up the Mountain of Purgatory and his postmortem 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.040 shade form, people were telling lots of legends about his life, 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.200 and one of those legends is that once at his 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:01.080 home in Rome, Virgil built a two womb and held 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.440 an extravagant funeral for a dead fly, like a fly 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.600 as in the insect with six legs and wings. Uh. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.960 This story is very probably untrue, and we'll get to 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.120 why that is in a bit, but first I wanted 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.719 to explore some of the details, and for this I 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:21.159 was reading an article by George Pendall in Cabinet Magazine 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.960 in two thousand seven called Virgil's Fly, and he describes 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.120 the legend in the following way quote. Held in the 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.120 grounds of Virgil's home on Rome's Esqualine Hill, the funeral 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.400 attracted the great and good of the city. Dirges were 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:40.560 sung and tributes read. Virgil's patron Mycenas delivered a lengthy 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.000 and moving eulogy to the departed insect, and Virgil was 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.720 himself said to have uttered a few of his exquisite 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.599 verses over the tiny carcass A tomb had been erected 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.320 and the lifeless body of the fly was placed within it, 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.000 to the whales and moans of the professional mourners. So 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.760 lavish were the commemorations that the cost was stimated at 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.839 over eight hundred thousand sister ss. So that's the gist. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.400 According to this story, Virgil and his close friends spend 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.800 huge amounts of money and effort to celebrate the life 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.440 and memory of an insect, concluding with the insects burial 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.040 in a marble tomb. Why on earth would this be? Well? 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.680 The legend itself also contains an answer to this, So 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.800 to read from Pendle again quote but the reason for 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.240 the funeral was not due to extravagance, eccentricity, or even emotion. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.200 Having defeated Julius Caesar's assassins at the Battle of Philippi, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.400 the second Triumvirate was at that very moment engaged in 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.200 confiscating the estates of the rich and dividing them among 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.280 the war veterans. Returning from the battlefield. Only one exception 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.960 was given. If the estate held a burial plot, it 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.760 was not to be touched by burying his housefly. Virgil 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:59.000 saved his house. So here it has transformed into a 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:04.040 classic one of our favorite genres, loophole fiction. Yes, remember 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.440 when we did the Anthology of Horror segment in October 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.320 on deals with the Devil, and about how many of 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.160 these stories, I think, especially later deal with the Devil's 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.320 stories less so in the earlier ones. They're about somebody 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.400 saving the day by figuring out a loophole that they 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.200 can exploit to get out of their end of a 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.680 pact with Satan. And I wonder, again, what's so appealing 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.840 about this kind of plot resolution. It seems like maybe 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.800 this would be the kind of thing that's especially interesting 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.560 to too people who live in a more litigious kind 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.920 of culture. Could be. I can also imagine that if you're, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.400 if you're, if you've ever taken advantage of a loophole, 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:46.200 it probably helps out if you demonize the legal authority 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.320 to some degree, if you make them into a devil, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.600 because in all these stories, it's the loophole that saves 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.600 your soul. Whereas um, I think there are plenty of 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.480 cases in in real in real life where the loophole 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.360 might have the opposite effect. You Right, the loophole is 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:08.000 the is the refuge of of less savory individuals at times, right, 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.880 cheaters and scammers with crafty lawyers to help help them 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.880 get out of trouble by exploiting some kind of you know, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.040 loophole in the wording of something. Is it? Isn't that 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.000 always like, that's always a really frustrating thing when somebody 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.480 uh evades the obvious spirit of justice by exploiting the 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.200 exact wording of something, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.760 um yeah, So I can't have a wonder if there's 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.200 there's some connection there. You know, you make your stories 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.079 about cheating the devil with your loopholes, and then you 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.400 you feel better about the sort of implied devil that 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.559 you're cheating through your own loophole usage. Well, it's actually funny, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.800 there is uh. In this Pendle article, he also talks 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.280 about a medieval legend about Virgil. And we'll get into 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:53.920 more of these legends about Virgil's life as we go on, 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.920 but one of these medieval legends about Virgil is that 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.959 Virgil freeze a d men from there's like a devil 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.680 trapped in a bottle, and Virgil lets it out so 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.640 that it will empower him to do something great. I 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.840 think maybe he uses its powers to to get a 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.880 long road paved or something like that. But anyway, once 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.200 he has has used this demon power, now I think 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.240 the demon is supposed to get his into the bargain 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.880 is going to do something really bad. But first Virgil's like, wow, 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.280 you know you're so powerful. Could you show me again 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.600 how you fit your frame into that bottle? So the 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.320 devil does, and then he corks it back up, so 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.800 he gets to have his magic and keep the genie 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.680 in the bottle as well. Oh that's great. I don't 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.520 know how to climb into an oven. And I've never 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:42.520 sat on a shovel. That's some jack frost. Jack frost, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.360 that's from some ivanushka right there. So in that spirit 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.720 that there's obviously this interesting process by which after Virgil's death, 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.480 remember he lived in the first century b C. In 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.920 the centuries after his death, his poetry was greatly admired 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.320 and revered, but not just his poetry, he himself was 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.000 greatly admired and revered and took on the aspects of 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.960 a saint in many ways, even though he had been 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.600 a pagan. Uh. There's an interesting note in in his 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.400 Cabinet article where Pendle shares this fact that kind of 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.160 helps make more sense of the almost absurd reverence shown 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.360 for Virgil in the Divine Comedy in these in centuries 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.360 after his death, many Romans and and later Italians in 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.240 the Middle Ages thought of Virgil as possessing a literally 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:30.280 supernatural or near supernatural genius, that there was something magical 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.120 about his poetry, the same way people would feel there 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.680 is magic in the holy text of their religion. And 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.840 one one clear illustration of this is that in the 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:44.160 second century CE, under the Antonines, Uh, there had arisen 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.320 this form of divination. And we've we've done episodes on 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.480 divination in the past. You know, there are various ways 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.960 of trying to sort of get turned some sort of 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:58.480 noise or random input into an interpreted type of information 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.160 about hidden knowledge you know, what's going to happen the future, 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.760 or some other thing you want to know but can't uh. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:09.960 And and so the Virgil's poetry was itself used for divination, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.559 and so people would randomly select passages from the inneed 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.600 and then read those passages as some kind of prediction 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.360 about their future or statement about some other kind of 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.560 hidden knowledge. Uh Pendle writes, quote, it is said that 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:27.400 these sortes Virgiliana or Virgilian lots were consulted by both 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.800 the emperor's Hadrian and Severus, and with each consultation, Virgil's 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.240 memory began to take on an increasingly mystical air. But 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.400 anyway to get back to the story about Virgil and 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.880 the fly, So again, this story is almost certainly not true. 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.199 There are elements of it that fit within known history. 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.600 Apparently Virgil did actually have a house on the esqual 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.720 Line Hill uh the Second Triumph for it was actually 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.120 engaged in seizing a states so they could be given 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.040 to returning veterans from military campaigns. But that's just the 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.040 the accurate stuff about the setting. The main reason in 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.400 the story is probably untrue is simply that there is 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:07.559 no contemporary evidence or record of it. Uh. Nobody anywhere 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.160 near Virgil's lifetime mentions anything about it. It only shows 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.800 up in much much later sources. Rather, it seems to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.400 be one of those legends that accumulates on a you know, 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.319 sort of gloamse onto a revered historical figure due to 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.320 a chain of associative thinking. So what's the chain, Well, 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:30.920 that brings us to a an absurd and absurdly interesting 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.439 Latin poem called the q Lex, which means I think 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.840 you can interpret it as like the gnat or the fly. 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.440 Q Lex is also a genus name for certain types 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.360 of mosquitoes, so I think it means like a flying insect. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.079 And so this is a poem that was published sometime 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.400 after Virgil's death, and it was attributed to him as 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.280 part of his juvenile Yad. It was widely said, okay, 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.480 so this is something that Virgil actually wrote, but he 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.520 wrote it when it was young, and that's that's why 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.040 it's maybe not as good as his other poetry. Modern scholars, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.360 I think mostly really doubt that Virgil actually wrote this. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.760 It would technically be a poem in the pastoral genre. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:15.000 So that's poetry about the supposedly blissful, uncomplicated life of 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.439 people in the countryside. It's usually about shepherds or herdsmen, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.640 often a lot of references to flowers and naps and 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.079 clouds and cool waters, the idols of pan And it 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.560 made me think about how you know, So for hundreds 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.600 of years, the pastoral poem from the Classical period, even 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:36.360 into into the Renaissance was and well, actually i'd say 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.840 even into the Romantic poetry era. There there is this 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.080 tendency to fall back on this classic genre of stuff 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.120 about the fields and the simple life of shepherds and 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.880 all that, uh and and how great it is. And 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.160 I wonder if this is sort of realized in modern culture, 0:13:55.280 --> 0:14:00.640 in our desire for like, uh, simple, aesthetically gentle content 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.960 like the Great British bake Off. Is that the pastoral 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.440 poetry of the modern era? Yeah, yeah, perhaps you know, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:13.520 um just sort of like soothing and non offensive. Perhaps, uh, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.000 you know, just just you know, it's not even really escapism. 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:17.720 It's just I mean, I guess to a certain extent 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.760 it is escapism. But yeah, perhaps I can see that connection. 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.400 I don't know it connected in my brain. But so 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.640 there's a plot in this poem, the Coolex. It is 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.560 widely regarded as absolutely ridiculous, but here is how it goes. 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.240 A shepherd goes out in the morning to take his 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:38.840 flocks to pasture, and there's some standard pastoral poetry musing 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.040 on how the simple life of a shepherd living in 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.120 the fields is so much better than the fraud life 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.040 of a rich man, because it's better to throw your 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.600 body down in the tender grass and lay your head 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.720 among the flower buds than to be consumed with the 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.520 grief and the greed that curdles the hearts of the 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.760 rich and powerful. So the shepherd is living this nice, 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.600 ide dilick life. He takes his flock to a fountain 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.200 in the woods, and there he falls asleep, lying in 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.760 the shade. But while he's asleep, a giant, horrible snake 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.960 slithers up. It's coming to the fountain where it likes 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.280 to lie in the mud, and it decides it's going 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.160 to bite the shepherd in his sleep and kill him. 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.320 But just before the snake attacks, a gnat buzzes down 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.360 and stings the shepherd on the eye, and this wakes 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.920 him up, and the shepherd crushes the gnat, but it 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.160 also wakes him up just in time to see the 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.800 snake and to save himself, so he beats the snake 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.200 to death with a piece of wood, which I would say, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.640 in reality, is almost never necessary. Even if a snake 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.520 is dangerous, you can run away from it right, But 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.760 this is a storybook snake, and you know how they do. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.880 They do things like wrap around you and tie you 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.160 to a tree or swile you hole. So um, you know, 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.000 within the context of the story, maybe it's justified, right. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.160 So yeah, he gets this. This piece of wood beats 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.800 the snake into a bloody pulp. And then later the 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.760 shepherd goes to sleep again and the ghost of the 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.080 nat appears. It comes to him in a dream, and 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.240 the gnat choose him out for not being grateful. He's like, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.680 why do you crush me? I saved your life. And 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.440 the shepherd wakes up and he feels remorse for what 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.160 he's done, and he builds a tomb in honor of 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.160 the gnat, and then decorates the tomb with flowers and 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.320 fruit and so to read briefly from the tomb section 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.120 of the poem, it says for him at length, did 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:32.760 heedful care the toil begun completing, gathered up the piled material, 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.160 and with a plenteous mound of earth, a tomb arose 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.360 in circle shaped around it, placing stone of marble smooth, 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.160 he plants it, mindful of his constant care and growing 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.280 here throughout the brilliant ring a can't this is? And 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.240 bashful roses too, and every kind of violet. And then 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.880 there are a bunch of lines about flowers. I'm gonna 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:58.080 skip towards the end of that flower section. Um the 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.040 admiranthe is here, and great switch, large do cluster ever 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.520 flowering piccres to Narcissus isn't absent there in whom his 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.600 beauty's radiance from cupids fire for limbs, his own begot 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.359 a hot desire, and all the flowers that blooming seasons. 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.919 No with these the mound is planted, or then on 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.520 the front is placed the inscription, which asserts the letters, 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.359 saying it with silent speech, Oh, tiny gnat, the keeper 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.119 of the flocks, don't pay to the deserving such a 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.720 thing the duty of a ceremonial tomb in payment for 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.040 the gift of life to him. All right, Well, there 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.159 you have it, a poem about honoring the the gnat 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.360 that saved him from the snake when he was sleeping 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.760 on the job. This is something I'm actually confused about. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.719 Our shepherds supposed to just sleep while they're watching their flocks, 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.439 or they're not supposed to be watching. I don't know, 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.240 but you do see it is part of that pastoral 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:59.000 sort of image, you know, like we've all encountered some 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.320 version of that four which I'm guessing most of that 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.639 is just, Yeah, it's pining for a this um, this 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.199 presumed idyllic lifestyle in the country where it's like, oh, 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.240 you're just looking after sheep. It's just like a nap 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.920 all day. That's not just all it is, glossing over 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.160 all the other stuff that comes harding a shepherd. Yeah. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.080 But anyway, once again it seems that modern scholars do 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.840 not accept that Virgil actually wrote this poem. Virgil did 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.159 write pastoral poetry. For example, in his ecologues. There's this 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.879 great part of in the i think the tenth eclogue 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:37.119 where he concludes with a wonderful passage decided bedtime uh, 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.080 where he writes, come let us rise. The shade is 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.159 wont to be baneful to singers. Baneful is the shade 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.560 cast by the juniper crops, sickened two in the shade, 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.320 now homeward, having fed your phil eves, star is rising, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:56.360 go my she goats go. Okay. I guess that's that's 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.800 pretty good. But but yeah, if you were just going 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.040 off of this passage. I don't know if you'd you'd 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.720 really buy Dante's hype for virgil Um. Well, I mean, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.879 she part is nice, that is the good part, and 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.040 it is in translation. I think, you know, there's all 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.880 kinds of stuff. I mean, for every type of poetry 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.719 and translation, there's a lot of stuff that's lost. But anyway, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.560 so the Coolex, there's a good chance it was written 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.800 by someone else and then published under Virgil's name, and 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:26.879 it may well have had some kind of other meaning, 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.399 like a veiled meaning as a political allegory, though I 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.919 didn't follow the threads on that. But despite the doubt 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.720 about the authorship, the poem seems to have given rise 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:41.680 to all kinds of bizarre fly legends associated with virgil Um. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.800 So to read a segment from Pendel that I thought 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.919 this was amazing quote. One of the most popular Neapolitan 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.639 myths held that Virgil had created a bronze fly the 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.200 size of a frog and placed it on one of 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.080 the gates of Naples. The talisman remained there for eight years, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.879 during which time no flies could enter the city. In 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.919 a similar vein, armies attacking Naples were said to have 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.480 been harassed by swarms of flies sent after them by 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.280 the poet. The fly would become Virgil's magical familiar over 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.040 the ensuing years, never far from any tale of his exploits, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.960 and that was not all. Possibly due to this control 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.479 of pestilence, Virgil was said to have created baths that 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.600 cured all illnesses, and a butcher's block on which meat 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.359 stayed fresh for six weeks. No longer renowned as the 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.240 master of grammar and philosophy, Virgil's achievements were put down 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.560 to his mathematical knowledge. In only a few centuries, Virgil 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.000 had gone from being the preeminent poet of the Roman 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.920 Empire to a Neapolitan enchanter with the pensiont for magical insects. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.560 And there's all kinds of fabulous stuff about medieval legends 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:53.280 about Virgil becoming more of a necromancer type figure, that 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.080 he's got all these strange magical powers, like that you 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.480 know that he commands the insects of the air and 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.240 cast them down upon his enemies or can save you 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.040 from them, and uh, and I love that that that 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.000 this was like, I don't know if there was anything 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.160 in his actual life to associate him with flies. It's 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.240 only this poem that he probably didn't even actually right 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.000 and isn't actually very good, that was attributed to him 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.160 later that gave rise to all these strange stories. Wow, 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.399 that's something. Yeah, I don't I don't recall it, you know, 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.879 picking up on the the idea of the wizard Virgil. 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.520 But but now I'm fascinated by it. Well. I think 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.160 one thing is by the Middle Ages he had these 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.680 broadly understood wizard associations, but I think Dante was sort 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.680 of moving back against that and and saying like, no, 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:46.200 let's fit him more into the Christian cosmology and say 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.399 that he's more this beacon of reason and wisdom in 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.679 the pagan world. But we do see this wizardization taking 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.160 more hold with other figures like Roger Bacon comes to mind, 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.960 and we've talked about this on the show before. Oh yeah, 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.000 I remember in one of our previous episodes we sort 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.840 of concluded that maybe one of the greatest contributions of 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.960 Roger Bacon as a as a you know, man of 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.440 great learning in the Middle Ages and the thirteenth century 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.200 was that he was very open to sources of knowledge 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:16.679 from all over the world. So a lot of what 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.919 he did was say, like apply things that he learned 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.359 from texts from the medieval Muslim world, like the texts 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.240 of Vanel Haytham and other things, or like uh, studying 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.720 objects brought to him from from countries afar. So he 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.800 was sort of a good collector of knowledge from many places. 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.560 But somehow gets this, I don't know, gets this label 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.800 affixed to him, like he's some kind of wonder worker, 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.639 which he wasn't really in life, right, I mean, he 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.920 was it seems like he was a very impressive individual, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:50.159 but yeah, he's begome. He instantly becomes elevated to like 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.679 arch alchemist status in some of these tellings, you know, 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:55.439