Old Calabria Part 18

A gorgeous procession took place about midday. Like a many-coloured serpent it wound out of the chapel, writhed through the intricacies of the pathway, and then unrolled itself freely, in splendid convolutions, about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the bagpipers congregated in a ma.s.s, each playing his own favourite tune.

The figure of the Madonna--a modern and unprepossessing image--was carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up on the heads of pious female pilgrims. These multi-coloured candles are arranged in charming designs; they are fixed upright in a framework of wood, to resemble baskets or bird-cages, and decked with bright ribbons and paper flowers.

Who settles the expenses of such a festival? The priests, in the first place, have paid a good deal to make it attractive; they have improved the chapel, constructed a number of permanent wooden shelters (rain sometimes spoils the proceedings), as well as a capacious reservoir for holding drinking water, which has to be transported in barrels from a considerable distance. Then--as to the immediate outlay for music, fireworks, and so forth--the Madonna-statue is "put up to auction": _fanno l'incanto della Madonna,_ as they say; that is, the privilege of helping to carry the idol from the church and back in the procession is sold to the highest bidders. Inasmuch as She is put up for auction several times during this short perambulation, fresh enthusiasts coming forward gaily with bank-notes and shoulders--whole villages competing against each other--a good deal of money is realized in this way. There are also spontaneous gifts of money. Goats and sheep, too, decorated with coloured rags, are led up by peasants who have "devoted" them to the Mother of G.o.d; the butchers on the spot buy these beasts for slaughter, and their price goes to swell the funds.

This year's expenditure may have been a thousand francs or so, and the proceeds are calculated at about two-thirds of that sum.

No matter. If the priests do not make good the deficiency, some one else will be kind enough to step forward. Better luck next year! The festival, they hope, is to become more popular as time goes on, despite the chilling prophecy of one of our friends: "It will finish, this comedy!" The money, by the way, does not pa.s.s through the hands of the clerics, but of two individuals called "Regolatore" and "Priore," who mutually control each other. They are men of reputable families, who burden themselves with the troublesome task for the honour of the thing, and make up any deficiencies in the accounts out of their own pockets.

Cases of malversation are legendary.

This procession marked the close of the religious gathering. Hardly was it over before there began a frenzied scrimmage of departure. And soon the woodlands echoed with the laughter and farewellings of pilgrims returning homewards by divergent paths; the whole way through the forest, we formed part of a jostling caravan along the Castrovillari-Morano track--how different from the last time I had traversed this route, when nothing broke the silence save a chaffinch piping among the branches or the distant tap of some woodp.e.c.k.e.r!

So ended the _festa._ Once in the year this mountain chapel is rudely disquieted in its slumbers by a boisterous riot; then it sinks again into tranquil oblivion, while autumn dyes the beeches to gold. And very soon the long winter comes; chill tempests shake the trees and leaves are scattered to earth; towards Yuletide some woodman of Viggianello adventuring into these solitudes, and mindful of their green summer revels, discovers his familiar sanctuary entombed up to the door-lintle under a glittering sheet of snow. . . .

There was a little episode in the late afternoon. We had reached the foot of the Gaudolino valley and begun the crossing of the plain, when there met us a woman with dishevelled hair, weeping bitterly and showing other signs of distress; one would have thought she had been robbed or badly hurt. Not at all! Like the rest of us, she had attended the feast and, arriving home with the first party, had been stopped at the entrance of the town, where they had insisted upon fumigating her clothes as a precaution against cholera, and those of her companions.

That was all. But the indignity choked her--she had run back to warn the rest of us, all of whom were to be treated to the same outrage. Every approach to Morano, she declared, was watched by doctors, to prevent wary pilgrims from entering by unsuspected paths.

During her recital my muleteer had grown thoughtful.

"What's to be done?" he asked.

"I don't much mind fumigation," I replied.

"Oh, but I do! I mind it very much. And these doctors are so dreadfully distrustful. How shall we cheat them? ... I have it, I have it!"

And he elaborated the following stratagem:

"I go on ahead of you, alone, leading the two mules. You follow, out of sight, behind. And what happens? When I reach the doctor, he asks slyly: 'Well, and how did you enjoy the festival this year?' Then I say: 'Not this year, doctor; alas, no festival for me! I've been with an Englishman collecting beetles in the forest, and see? here's his riding mule. He walks on behind--oh, quite harmless, doctor! a nice gentleman, indeed--only, he prefers walking; he really _likes_ it, ha, ha, ha!----"

"Why mention about my walking?" I interrupted. The lady-mule was still a sore subject.

"I mention about your not riding," he explained graciously, "because it will seem to the doctor a sure sign that you are a little"--here he touched his forehead with a significant gesture--"a little like some other foreigners, you know. And that, in its turn, will account for your collecting beetles. And that, in its turn, will account for your not visiting the Madonna. You comprehend the argument: how it all hangs together?"

"I see. What next?"

"Then you come up, holding one beetle in each hand, and pretend not to know a word of Italian--not a word! You must smile at the doctor, in friendly fashion; he'll like that. And besides, it will prove what I said about----" (touching his forehead once more). "In fact, the truth will be manifest. And there will be no fumigation for us."

It seemed a needlessly circuitous method of avoiding such a slight inconvenience. I would have put more faith in a truthful narrative by myself, suffused with that ingratiating amiability which I would perforce employ on such occasions. But the stronger mind, as usual, had its way.

"I'll smile," I agreed. "But you shall carry my beetles; it looks more natural, somehow. Go ahead, and find them."

He moved forwards with the beasts and, after destroying a considerable tract of stone wall, procured a few specimens of native coleoptera, which he carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper. I followed slowly.

Unfortunately for him, that particular doctor happened to be an _americana_ a snappy little fellow, lately returned from the States.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he began, as I came up to where the two were arguing together. "I've heard of your pa.s.sing through the other day. So you don't talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of yours, this G.o.d-dam son of Satan, has been showing me a couple of bugs and telling me a couple of hundred lies about them. Better move on right away; lucky you struck _me!_ As for this son of a ----, you bet I'll sulphur him, bugs and all, to h.e.l.l!"

I paid the crestfallen muleteer then and there; took down my bags, greatly lightened, and departed with them. Glancing round near the little bridge, I saw that the pair were still engaged in heated discussion, my man clinging despairingly, as it seemed, to the beetle-hypothesis; he looked at me with reproachful eyes, as though I had deserted him in his hour of need.

But what could I do, not knowing Italian?

Moreover, I remembered the "lady-mule."

Fifteen minutes later a light carriage took me to Castrovillari, whence, after a bath and dinner that compensated for past hardships, I sped down to the station and managed, by a miracle, to catch the night-train to Cosenza.

XXI

MILTON IN CALABRIA

You may spend pleasant days in this city of Cosenza, doing nothing whatever. But I go there a for set purpose, and bristling with energy. I go there to hunt for a book by a certain Salandra, which was printed on the spot, and which I have not yet been able to find, although I once discovered it in an old catalogue, priced at 80 _grani._ Gladly would I give 8000 for it!

The author was a contemporary of that Flying Monk of whom I spoke in Chapter X, and he belonged to the same religious order. If, in what I then said about the flying monk, there appears to be some trace of light fooling in regard to this order and its methods, let amends be made by what I have to tell about old Salandra, the discovery of whose book is one of primary importance for the history of English letters. Thus I thought at the time; and thus I still think, with all due deference to certain grave and discerning gentlemen, the editors of various English monthlies to whom I submitted a paper on this subject--a paper which they promptly returned with thanks. No; that is not quite correct. One of them has kept it; and as six years have pa.s.sed over our heads, I presume he has now acquired a t.i.tle by "adverse possession." Much good may it do him!

Had the discovery been mine, I should have endeavoured to hide my light under the proverbial bushel. But it is not mine, and therefore I make bold to say that Mr. Bliss Perry, of the "Atlantic Monthly," knew better than his English colleagues when he published the article from which I take what follows.

"Charles Dunster ('Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,' etc., 1810) traces the _prima stamina_ of 'Paradise Lost' to Sylvester's 'Du Bartas.' Masenius, Cedmon, Vendei, and other older writers have also been named in this connection, while the majority of Milton's English commentators--and among foreigners Voltaire and Tiraboschi--are inclined to regard the 'Adamus Exul' of Grotius or Andreini's sacred drama of 'Adamo' as the prototype."

This latter can be consulted in the third volume of Cowper's 'Milton'

(1810).

The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised that no notice has yet been taken of an Italian article which goes far towards deciding this question and proving that the chief source of 'Paradise Lost' is the 'Adamo Caduto,' a sacred tragedy by Serafino della Salandra. The merit of this discovery belongs to Francesco Zicari, whose paper, 'Sulla scoverta dell' originale italiano da cui Milton tra.s.se il suo poema del paradiso perduto,' is printed on pages 245 to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples 'Alb.u.m scientifico-artistico-letterario' now lying before me. It is in the form of a letter addressed to his friend Francesco Ruffa, a native of Tropea in Calabria. [Footnote: Zicari contemplated another paper on this subject, but I am unaware whether this was ever published. The Neapolitan Minieri-Riccio, who wrote his 'Memorie Storiche' in 1844, speaks of this article as having been already printed in 1832, but does not say where. This is corroborated by N. Falcone ('Biblioteca storica-topo-grafica della Calabria,' 2nd ed., Naples, 1846, pp.

151-154), who gives the same date, and adds that Zicari was the author of a work on the district of Fuscaldo. He was born at Paola in Calabria, of which he wrote a (ma.n.u.script) history, and died in 1846. In this Milton article, he speaks of his name being 'unknown in the republic of letters.'. He it mentioned by Nicola Leoni (' Della Magna Grecia,' vol.

ii, p. 153),]

Salandra, it is true, is named among the writers of sacred tragedies in Todd's 'Milton' (1809, vol. ii, p. 244), and also by Hayley, but neither of them had the curiosity, or the opportunity, to examine his 'Adamo Caduto'; Hayley expressly says that he has not seen it. More recent works, such as that of Moers ('De fontibus Paradisi Amissi Miltoniani,'

Bonn, 1860), do not mention Salandra at all. Byse ('Milton on the Continent,' 1903) merely hints at some possible motives for the Allegro and the Penseroso.

As to dates, there can be no doubt to whom the priority belongs. The 'Adamo' of Salandra was printed at Cosenza in 1647. Richardson thinks that Milton entered upon his 'Paradise Lost' in 1654, and that it was shown, as done, in 1665; D. Ma.s.son agrees with this, adding that 'it was not published till two years afterwards.' The date 1665 is fixed, I presume, by the Quaker Elwood's account of his visit to Milton in the autumn of that year, when the poet gave him the ma.n.u.script to read; the two years' delay in publication may possibly have been due to the confusion occasioned by the great plague and fire of London.

The castigation bestowed upon Lauder by Bishop Douglas, followed, as it was, by a terrific 'back-hander' from the brawny arm of Samuel Johnson, induces me to say that Salandra's 'Adamo Caduto,' though extremely rare--so rare that neither the British Museum nor the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale possesses a copy--is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca n.a.z.ionale; it is a small octavo of 251 pages (not including twenty unnumbered ones, and another one at the end for correction of misprints); badly printed and bearing all the marks of genuineness, with the author's name and the year and place of publication clearly set forth on the t.i.tle-page. I have carefully compared Zicari's references to it, and quotations from it with the original. They are correct, save for a few insignificant verbal discrepancies which, so far as I can judge, betray no indication of an attempt on his part to mislead the reader, such as using the word _tromba_ (trumpet) instead of Salandra's term _sambuca_ (sackbut). And if further proof of authenticity be required, I may note that the 'Adamo Caduto' of Salandra is already cited in old bibliographies like Toppi's 'Biblioteca Napoletana' (1678), or that of Joannes a S. Antonio ('Biblioteca universa Franciscana, etc.,' Madrid, 1732-1733, vol. iii, p. 88). It appears to have been the only literary production of its author, who was a Franciscan monk and is described as 'Preacher, Lector and Definitor of the Reformed Province of Basilicata.'

We may take it, then, that Salandra was a real person, who published a mystery called 'Adamo Caduto' in 1647; and I will now, without further preamble, extract from Zicari's article as much as may be sufficient to show ground for his contention that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a transfusion, in general and in particular, of this same mystery.

Salandra's central theme is the Universe shattered by the disobedience of the First Man, the origin of our unhappiness and sins. The same with Milton.

Salandra's chief personages are G.o.d and His angels; the first man and woman; the serpent; Satan and his angels. The same with Milton.

Salandra, at the opening of his poem (the prologue), sets forth his argument, and dwells upon the Creative Omnipotence and his works. The same with Milton.

Salandra then describes the council of the rebel angels, their fall from heaven into a desert and sulphurous region, their discourses. Man is enviously spoken of, and his fall by means of stratagem decided upon; it is resolved to reunite in council in Pandemonium or the Abyss, where measures may be adopted to the end that man may become the enemy of G.o.d and the prey of h.e.l.l. The same with Milton.

Salandra personifies Sin and Death, the latter being the child of the former. The same with Milton.

Salandra describes Omnipotence foreseeing the effects of the temptation and fall of man, and preparing his redemption. The same with Milton.