The Bronze Boar Of The Mercato Nuovo

“Now among the Greeks, as with the Northern races, the boar was the
special type of male generation, even as the frog expressed that of
the female sex. And therefore images of the boar were set in public
places that fertility might be developed among women, for which
reason they also wear, as among the Arabs, necklaces of silver
frogs.”—_Notes on Symbolism_.

In front of the Mercato Nuovo, built by Cosimo I., stands a bronze copy of an ancient boar, now in the Uffizzi Gallery. It was cast by Pietro Tacca, and is now a fountain. The popular legend in relation to it is as follows:

“In the market-place of Florence, which is called _Il Porcellino_, because there is in it a fountain with a swine, there was anciently only a spring of water and a pool, in which were many frogs, water-lizards, shell-snails, and slugs. These were round about, but in the spring itself was a frog who was confined there because she had revealed that her lover was a boar.

“This boar was the son of a rich lord, who, being married for a very long time, had no children, and for this reason made his wife very unhappy, saying that she was a useless creature, and that if she could not bear a son she had better pack up and be off with herself, which she endured despairingly and weeping continually, praying to the saints and giving alms withal, all to bring forth an heir, and all in vain.

“One day she saw a drove of pigs go by her palace, and among them were many sows and many more very little pigs. Now among these, or at hand, was a _fata_ or witch-spirit. {47} And the lady seeing this said in the bitterness of her heart, ‘So the very pigs have offspring and I none. I would I were as they are, and could do as they do, and bring forth as they bring forth, and so escape all this suffering!’

“And the fairy heard this, and took her at her word; and, as you will see, she cut her cloth without measuring it first, from which came a sad misfit. And soon after she was ill, and this being told to her husband, he replied, ‘Good news, and may she soon be gone!’ but he changed his tone when he heard that he was to have an heir. Then he flew to her and begged her pardon, and made great rejoicings.

“Truly there was horror and sorrow when in due time the lady, instead of a human child, brought forth a boar-pig. Yet the parents were so possessed with the joy of having any kind of offspring that they ended by making a great pet of the creature, who was, however, human in his ways, and could in time talk with grace and ease. {48a} And when he grew older he began to run after the girls, and they to run away from him, screaming as if the devil had sent him for them.

“There lived near the palace a beautiful but very poor girl, and with her the young Boar fell desperately in love. So he asked her parents for her hand; but they, poor as they were, laughed at him, saying that their daughter should never marry a swine. But the young lady had well perceived that this was no common or lazy pig, such as never gets a ripe pear—_porco pigro non mangia pere mature_—as he had shown by wooing her; and, secondly, because she was poor and ambitious, and daring enough to do anything to become rich and great. {48b}

“Now she surmised that there were eggs under the chopped straw in this basket, or more in the youth than people supposed; and she was quite right, for on the bridal night he not only unclothed himself of silk and purple and fine linen, but also doffed his very skin or boar’s hide, and appeared as beautiful as a Saint Sebastian freshly painted.

“Then he said to her, ‘Be not astonished to find me good-looking at the rate of thirty sous to a franc, nor deem thyself over-paid, for if we had not wedded, truly I should have gone on pigging it to the end of my days, having been doomed—like many men—to be a beast so long as I was a bachelor, or till a beautiful maid would marry me. Yet there is a condition attached to this, which is, that I can only be a man as thou seest me by night, for I must be a boar by day. And shouldst thou ever betray this secret to any one, or if it be found out, then I shall again be a boar all the time for life, and thou turn into a frog because of too much talking.

“Now as surely as that time and straw ripen medlars, as the saying is, just so surely will it come to pass that a woman will tell a secret, even to her own shame. And so it befell this lady, who told it as a great mystery to her mother, who at once imparted it under oath to all her dear friends, who swore all their friends on all their salvations not to breathe a word of it to anybody, who all confessed it to the priests. How much farther it went God knows, but by the time the whole town knew it, which was in one day of twenty-four hours, or ere the next morning, the bride had become a frog who lived in the spring, and the bridegroom a boar who every day went to drink at the water, and when there said:

“‘Lady Frog! lo, I am here!
He to whom thou once wert dear.
We are in this sad condition,
Not by avarice or ambition,
Nor by evil or by wrong,
But ’cause thou could’st not hold thy tongue;
For be she shallow, be she deep,
No woman can a secret keep;
Which all should think upon who see
The monument which here will be.’

“So it came to pass either that the boar turned into the great bronze _maiale_ which now stands in the market-place, or else the people raised it in remembrance of the story—_chi sa_—but there it is to this day.

“As for the Signora Frog, she comforted herself by making a great noise and telling the tale at the top of her voice, having her brains in her tongue—_il cervello nella lingua_, as they say of those who talk well yet have but small sense. And that which you hear frogs croaking all night long is nothing but this story which I have told you of their ancestress and the bronze boar.”

* * * * *

This is, in one form or the other, a widely spread tale. As the voice of the frog has a strange resemblance to that of man, there being legends referring to it in every language, and as there is a bold and forward expression in its eyes, {50} it was anciently regarded as a human being who was metamorphosed for being too impudent and loquacious, as appears by the legend of “Latona and the Lycian Boors” (Ovid, _Metamorph._, vi. 340). The general resemblance of the form of a frog to that of man greatly contributed to create such fables.

The classic ancient original of this boar may be seen in the Uffizzi Gallery. As the small image of a pig carried by ladies ensures that they will soon be, as the Germans say, “in blessed circumstances,” or _enceinte_ (which was all one with luck in old times), so the image of the boar is supposed to be favourable to those ladies who desire olive branches. From all which it appears that in ancient times swine were more highly honoured than at present, or, as Shelley sings:

“We pigs
Were blest as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,
Or grasshoppers that live on noon-day dew.”