Villani, VI. 5, says: "On the Rock of Carmignano there was a tower seventy yards high, and upon it two marble arms, the hands of which were making the figs at Florence." Others say these hands were on a finger-post by the road-side.
In the Merry Wives of Windsor, I. 3, Pistol says:
"Convey, the wise it call; Steal! foh; a fico fo the phrase!" And Martino, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Widow, V. 1: --
"The fig of everlasting obloquy
Go with him."
The Italian proverb says, Pistoia la ferrigna, iron Pistoia, or Pistoia the pitiless.
Virgil, Aeneid, VIII., Dryden's Tr.: --
"See yon huge cavern, yawning wide around,
Where still the shattered mountain spreads the ground:
That spacious hold grim Cacus once posessed,
Tremendous find! half human, half a beast:
Deep, deep as hell, the dismal dungeon lay,
Dark and impervious to the beams of day.
With copious slaughter smoked the purple floor,
Pale heads hung horrid on the lofty door,
Dreadful to view! and dropped with crimson gore."
"The leaf of the reed,
Which has grown through the clefts in the ruins of ages."
"Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same,
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called.
"Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded."
"But soon a fate more sad with new surprise
From the first object turns their wondering eyes.
Wretched Sabellus by a Seps was stung:
Fixed on his leg with deadly teeth it hung.
Sudden the soldier shook it from the wound,
Transfixed and nailed it to the barren ground.
Of all the dire, destructive serpent race,
None have so much of death, though none are less.
For straight around the part the skin withdrew,
The flesh and shrinking sinews backward flew,
And left the naked bones exposed to view.
The spreading poisons all the parts confound,
And the whole body stinks within the wound.
Small relics of the mouldering mass were left,
At once of substance as of form bereft;
Dissolved, the whole in liquid poison ran,
And to a nauseous puddle shrunk the man.
So snows dissolved by southern breezes run,
So melts the wax before the noonday sun.
Nor ends the wonder here; though flames are known
To waste the flesh, yet still they spare the bone:
Here none were left, no least remains were seen,
No marks to show that once the man had been.
A fate of different kind Nasidius found, --
A burning Prester gave the deadly wound,
And straight a sudden flame began to spread,
And paint his visage with a glowing red.
With swift expansion swells the bloated skin, --
Naught but an undistinguished mass is seen,
While the fair human form lies lost within;
The puffy poison spreads and heaves around,
Till all the man is the monster drowned.
No more the steely plate his breast can stay,
But yields, and gives the bursting poison way.
Not waters so, when fire the rage supplies,
Bubbling on heaps, in boiling caldrons rise;
Nor swells the stretching canvas half so fast,
When the sails gather all the driving blast,
Strain the tough yards, and bow the lofty mast.
The various parts no longer now are known,
One headless, formless heap remains alone."
"`Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline
Down to my face: still touch what still is mine.
O let these hands, while hands, be gently pressed,
While yet the serpent has not all posessed.'
More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain, --
The forky tongue refused to tell his pain,
And learned in hissings only to complain.
"Then shrieked Harmonia, `Stay, my Cadmus, stay!
Glide not in such a monstrous shape away!
Destruction, like impetous waves, rolls on.
Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders, gone?
Changed is thy visage, changed is all thy frame, --
Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name.
Ye Gods! my Cadmus to himself restore
Or me like him transform, -- I ask no more.'"
And V., Maynwaring's Tr.: --
"The God so near, a chilly sweat posessed
My fainting limbs, at every pore expressed;
My strength distilled in drops, my hair in dew,
My form was changed, and all my substance new:
Each motion was a stream, and my whole frame
Turned to a fount, which still preserves my name."
See also Shelly's Arethusa: --
"Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains, --
From the cloud and from crag
With many a jag
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep.
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep."