Chapter VIII: Part 8

“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 _americano_ 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 passing through the other day. So you don’t talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of yours, this God-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 hell!”

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 passed over our heads, I presume he has now acquired a title 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, Vondel, 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 trasse il suo poema del paradiso perduto,’ is printed on pages 245 to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples ‘Album 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.[1]

[1] 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. 152-154), 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 (manuscript) history, and died in 1846. In this Milton article, he speaks of his name being ‘unknown in the republic of letters.’. He is 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. Masson 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 manuscript 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 Bibliothèque Nationale possesses a copy—is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale; 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 title-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 God 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 God and the prey of hell. 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.

Salandra depicts the site of Paradise and the happy life there. The same with Milton.

Salandra sets forth the miraculous creation of the universe and of man, and the virtues of the forbidden fruit. The same with Milton.

Salandra reports the conversation between Eve and the Serpent; the eating of the forbidden fruit and the despair of our first parents. The same with Milton.

Salandra describes the joy of Death at the discomfiture of Eve; the rejoicings in hell; the grief of Adam; the flight of our first parents, their shame and repentance. The same with Milton.

Salandra anticipates the intercession of the Redeemer, and the overthrow of Sin and Death; he dwells upon the wonders of the Creation, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, and other human ills; the vices of the Antediluvians, due to the fall of Adam; the infernal gift of war. The same with Milton.

Salandra describes the passion of Jesus Christ, and the comforts which Adam and Eve receive from the angel who announces the coming of the Messiah; lastly, their departure from the earthly paradise. The same with Milton.

So much for the general scheme of both poems. And now for a few particular points of resemblance, verbal and otherwise.

The character of Milton’s Satan, with the various facets of pride, envy, vindictiveness, despair, and impenitence which go to form that harmonious whole, are already clearly mapped out in the Lucifero of Salandra. For this statement, which I find correct, Zicari gives chapter and verse, but it would take far too long to set forth the matter in this place. The speeches of Lucifero, to be sure, read rather like a caricature—it must not be forgotten that Salandra was writing for lower-class theatrical spectators, and not for refined readers—but the elements which Milton has utilized are already there.

Here is a coincidence:

Here we may reign secure . . . Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

MILTON (i, 258).

. . . Qui propria voglia, Son capo, son qui duce, son lor Prence.

SALANDRA (p. 49).

And another:

. . . Whom shall we find Sufficient? ... This enterprise None shall partake with me.—MILTON (ii, 403, 465).

A chi basterà l’ anima di voi? . . . certo che quest’ affare A la mia man s’ aspetta.—SALANDRA (p. 64).

Milton’s Terror is partially taken from the Megera of the Italian poet. The ‘grisly Terror’ threatens Satan (ii, 699), and the office of Megera, in Salandra’s drama, is exactly the same—that is, to threaten and chastise the rebellious spirit, which she does very effectually (pages 123-131). The identical monsters—Cerberus, Hydras, and Chimæras—are found in their respective abodes, but Salandra does not content himself with these three; his list includes such a mixed assemblage of creatures as owls, basilisks, dragons, tigers, bears, crocodiles, sphynxes, harpies, and panthers. Terror moves with dread rapidity:

. . . and from his seat The monster moving onward came as fast With horrid strides.—MILTON (ii, 675).

and so does Megera:

In atterir, in spaventar son . . . Rapido sì ch’ ogni ripar è vano.—SALANDRA (p. 59).

Both Milton and Salandra use the names of the gods of antiquity for their demons, but the narrative epic of the English poet naturally permitted of far greater prolixity and variety in this respect. A most curious parallelism exists between Milton’s Belial and that of Salandra. Both are described as luxurious, timorous, slothful, and scoffing, and there is not the slightest doubt that Milton has taken over these mixed attributes from the Italian.[2]

[2] This is one of the occasions in which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, and not Belial, who speaks of himself as cowardly _(imbelle)._ But in another place Lucifer applies this designation to Belial as well,

The words of Milton’s Beelzebub (ii, 368):

Seduce them to our party, that their god May prove their foe . . .

are copied from those of the Italian Lucifero (p. 52):

. . . Facciam Acciò, che l’ huom divenga A Dio nemico . . .

Regarding the creation of the world, Salandra asks (p. 11):

Qual lingua può di Dio, Benchè da Dio formato Lodar di Dio le meraviglie estreme?

which is thus echoed by Milton (vii, 112):

... to recount almighty works What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice?

There is a considerable resemblance between the two poets in their descriptions of Paradise and of its joys. In both poems, too, Adam warns his spouse of her frailty, and in the episode of Eve’s meeting with the serpent there are no less than four verbal coincidences. Thus Salandra writes (p. 68):

Ravviso gli animal, ch’ a schiera a schiera Già fanno humil e _reverente_ inclino . . . Ravveggio il bel serpente _avvolto_ in giri; O sei bello Con tanta varietà che certo sembri Altro stellato ciel, _smaltata_ terra. O che sento, _tu parli?_

and Milton transcribes it as follows (ix, 517-554):

. . . She minded not, as used To such disport before her through the field From every beast, more _duteous_ at her call . . . Curled many a wanton _wreath_ in sight of Eve. His turret crest and sleek _enamelled_ neck . . . What may this mean? Language of man _pronounced_ By tongue of brute?

Altogether, Zicari has observed that Rolli, although unacquainted with the ‘Adamo Caduto,’ has sometimes inadvertently hit upon the same words in his Italian translation of Milton which Salandra had used before him.

Eve’s altered complexion after the eating of the forbidden fruit is noted by both poets:

Torbata ne la faccia? Non sei quella Qual ti lasciai contenta . . .—SALANDRA (p. 89).

Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told; But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. —MILTON (ix, 886).

only with this difference, that the Italian Eve adds a half-lie by way of explaining the change:

. . . Forse cangiata (del che non mi avveggio) Sono nel volto per la tua partenza.—(p. 89).

In both poems Sin and Death reappear on the scene after the transgression.

The flight of Innocence from earth; the distempered lust which dominates over Adam and Eve after the Fall; the league of Sin and Death to rule henceforward over the world; the pathetic lament of Adam regarding his misfortune and the evils in store for his progeny; his noble sentiment, that none can withdraw himself from the all-seeing eye of God—all these are images which Milton has copied from Salandra.

Adam’s state of mind, after the fall, is compared by Salandra to a boat tossed by impetuous winds (p. 228):

Qual agitato legno d’Austro, e Noto, Instabile incostante, non hai pace, Tu vivi pur . . .

which is thus paraphrased in Milton (ix, 1122):

. . . High winds worse within Began to rise . . . and shook sore Their inward state of mind, calm region once And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent.

Here is a still more palpable adaptation:

... So God ordains: God is thy law, thou mine.—MILTON (iv, 636)

. . . . Un voler sia d’ entrambi, E quel’ uno di noi, di Dio sia tutto.—SALANDRA (p. 42).

After the Fall, according to Salandra, _vacillò la terra_ (i), _geme_ (2), _e pianse_ (3), _rumoreggiano i tuoni_ (4), _accompagnati da grandini_ (5), _e dense nevi_ (6), (pp. 138, 142, 218). Milton translates this as follows: Earth trembled from her entrails (1), and nature gave a second groan (2); sky loured and, muttering thunders (4), some sad drops wept (3), the winds, armed with ice and snow (6) and hail (5). (‘Paradise Lost,’ ix, 1000, x. 697).

Here is another translation:

. . . inclino il cielo Giù ne la terra, e questa al Ciel innalza.—SALANDRA (p. 242).

And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth.—MILTON (vii, 160).

It is not to my purpose to do Zicari’s work over again, as this would entail a complete translation of his long article (it contains nearly ten thousand words), to which, if the thing is to be done properly, must be appended Salandra’s ‘Adamo,’ in order that his quotations from it can be tested. I will therefore refer to the originals those who wish to go into the subject more fully, warning them, _en passant,_ that they may find the task of verification more troublesome than it seems, owing to a stupid mistake on Zicari’s part. For in his references to Milton, he claims (p. 252) to use an 1818 Venice translation of the ‘Paradise Lost’ by Rolli. Now Rolli’s ‘Paradiso Perduto’ is a well-known work which was issued in many editions in London, Paris, and Italy throughout the eighteenth century. But I cannot trace this particular one of Venice, and application to many of the chief libraries of Italy has convinced me that it does not exist, and that 1818 must be a misprint for some other year. The error would be of no significance if Zicari had referred to Rolli’s ‘Paradiso’ by the usual system of cantos and lines, but he refers to it by pages, and the pagination differs in every one of the editions of Rolli which have passed through my hands. Despite every effort, I have not been able to hit upon the precise one which Zicari had in mind, and if future students are equally unfortunate, I wish them joy of their labours.[3]

[3] Let me take this opportunity of expressing my best thanks to Baron E. Tortora Brayda, of the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale, who has taken an infinity of trouble in this matter.

These few extracts, however, will suffice to show that, without Salandra’s ‘Adamo,’ the ‘Paradise Lost,’ as we know it, would not be in existence; and that Zicari’s discovery is therefore one of primary importance for English letters, although it would be easy to point out divergencies between the two works—divergencies often due to the varying tastes and feelings of a republican Englishman and an Italian Catholic, and to the different conditions imposed by an epic and a dramatic poem. Thus, in regard to this last point, Zicari has already noted (p. 270) that Salandra’s scenic acts were necessarily reproduced in the form _of visions_ by Milton, who could not avail himself of the mechanism of the drama for this purpose. Milton was a man of the world, traveller, scholar, and politician; but it will not do for us to insist too vehemently upon the probable mental inferiority of the Calabrian monk, in view of the high opinion which Milton seems to have had of his talents. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The ‘Adamo Caduto,’ of course, is only one of a series of similar works concerning which a large literature has now grown up, and it might not be difficult to prove that Salandra was indebted to some previous writer for those words and phrases which he passed on to the English poet.

But where did Milton become acquainted with this tragedy? It was at Naples, according to Cowper (‘Milton,’ vol. iii, p. 206), that the English poet may first have entertained the idea of ‘the loss of paradise as a subject peculiarly fit for poetry.’ He may well have discussed sacred tragedies, like those of Andreini, with the Marquis Manso. But Milton had returned to England long before Salandra’s poem was printed; nor can Manso have sent him a copy of it, for he died in 1645—two years before its publication—and Zicari is thus mistaken in assuming (p. 245) that Milton became acquainted with it in the house of the Neapolitan nobleman. Unless, therefore, we take for granted that Manso was intimate with the author Salandra—he knew most of his literary countrymen—and sent or gave to Milton a copy of the manuscript of ‘Adamo’ before it was printed, or that Milton was personally familiar with Salandra, we may conclude that the poem was forwarded to him from Italy by some other friend, perhaps by some member of the _Accademia, degli Oziosi_ which Manso had founded.

A chance therefore seems to have decided Milton; Salandra’s tragedy fell into his hands, and was welded into the epic form which he had designed for Arthur the Great, even as, in later years, a chance question on the part of Elwood led to his writing ‘Paradise Regained.’[4] For this poem there were not so many models handy as for the other, but Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived in a mere dialogue such as ‘Paradise Regained’; it lacks the grandiose _mise-en-scène_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of ‘Paradise Lost,’ is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt—a serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar excellence to be ‘artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected eloquence’; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to hear ‘Paradise Lost’ preferred to ‘Paradise Regained,’ in view of the very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton knew, namely, to how large an extent ‘Paradise Lost’ was not the child of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as ‘Paradise Regained,’ we might have understood his prejudice.

[4] _Thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found?_ He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse. . . .

Certain parts of ‘Paradise Lost’ are drawn, as we all know, from other Italian sources, from Sannazario, Ariosto, Guarini, Bojardo, and others. Zicari who, it must be said, has made the best of his case, will have it that the musterings and battles of the good and evil angels are copied from the ‘Angeleide’ of Valvasone published at Milan in 1590. But G. Polidori, who has reprinted the ‘Angeleide’ in his Italian version of Milton (London, 1840), has gone into this matter and thinks otherwise. These devil-and-angel combats were a popular theme at the time, and there is no reason why the English poet should copy continental writers in such descriptions, which necessarily have a common resemblance. The Marquis Manso was very friendly with the poets Tasso and Marino, and it is also to be remarked that entire passages in ‘Paradise Lost’ are copied, _totidem verbis,_ from the writings of these two, Manso having no doubt drawn Milton’s attention to their beauties. In fact, I am inclined to think that Manso’s notorious enthusiasm for the _warlike_ epic of Tasso may first of all have diverted Milton from purely pastoral ideals and inflamed him with the desire of accomplishing a similar feat, whence the well-known lines in Milton’s Latin verses to this friend, which contain the first indication of such a design on his part. Even the familiar invocation, ‘Hail, wedded Love,’ is bodily drawn from one of Tasso’s letters (see Newton’s ‘Milton,’ 1773, vol. i, pp. 312, 313).

It has been customary to speak of these literary appropriations as ‘imitations’; but whoever compares them with the originals will find that many of them are more correctly termed translations. The case, from a literary-moral point of view, is different as regards ancient writers, and it is surely idle to accuse Milton, as has been done, of pilferings from Aeschylus or Ovid. There is no such thing as robbing the classics. They are our literary fathers, and what they have left behind them is our common heritage; we may adapt, borrow, or steal from them as much as will suit our purpose; to acknowledge such ‘thefts’ is sheer pedantry and ostentation. But Salandra and the rest of them were Milton’s contemporaries. It is certainly an astonishing fact that no scholar of the stamp of Thyer was acquainted with the ‘Adamo Caduto’; and it says much for the isolation of England that, at a period when poems on the subject of paradise lost were being scattered broadcast in Italy and elsewhere—when, in short, all Europe was ringing with the doleful history of Adam and Eve—Milton could have ventured to speak of his work as ‘Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme’—an amazing verse which, by the way, is literally transcribed out of Ariosto (‘Cosa, non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima’). But even now the acquaintance of the British public with the productions of continental writers is superficial and spasmodic, and such was the ignorance of English scholars of this earlier period, that Birch maintained that Milton’s drafts, to be referred to presently, indicated his intention of writing an _opera_ (!); while as late as 1776 the poet Mickle, notwithstanding Voltaire’s authority, questioned the very existence of Andreini, who has written thirty different pieces.

Some idea of the time when Salandra’s tragedy reached Milton might be gained if we knew the date of his manuscript projects for ‘Paradise Lost’ and other writings which are preserved at Cambridge. R. Garnett (‘Life of Milton,’ 1890, p. 129) supposes these drafts to date from about 1640 to 1642, and I am not sufficiently learned in Miltonian lore to controvert or corroborate in a general way this assertion. But the date must presumably be pushed further forward in the case of the skeletons for ‘Paradise Lost,’ which are modelled to a great extent upon Salandra’s ‘Adamo’ of 1647, though other compositions may also have been present before Milton’s mind, such as that mentioned on page 234 of the second volume of Todd’s ‘Milton,’ from which he seems to have drawn the hint of a ‘prologue spoken by Moses.’

Without going into the matter exhaustively, I will only say that from these pieces it is clear that Milton’s primary idea was to write, like Salandra, a sacred tragedy upon this theme, and not an epic. These drafts also contain a chorus, such as Salandra has placed in his drama, and a great number of mutes, who do not figure in the English epic, but who reappear in the ‘Adamo Caduto’ and all similar works. Even Satan is here designated as Lucifer, in accordance with the Italian Lucifero; and at the end of one of Milton’s drafts we read ‘at last appears Mercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah, etc.,’ which is exactly what Salandra’s Misericordia (Mercy) does in the same place.

Milton no doubt kept on hand many loose passages of poetry, both original and borrowed, ready to be worked up into larger pieces; all poets are smothered in odd scraps of verse and lore which they ‘fit in’ as occasion requires; and it is therefore quite possible that some fragments now included in ‘Paradise Lost’ may have been complete before the ‘Adamo Caduto’ was printed. I am referring, more especially, to Satan’s address to the sun, which Philips says was written before the commencement of the epic. Admitting Philips to be correct, I still question whether this invocation was composed before Milton’s visit to Naples; and if it was, the poet may well have intended it for some other of the multitudinous works which these drafts show him to have been revolving in his mind, or for none of them in particular.

De Quincey rightly says that Addison gave the initial bias in favour of ‘Paradise Lost’ to the English national mind, which has thenceforward shrunk, as Addison himself did, from a dispassionate contemplation of its defects; the idea being, I presume, that a ‘divine poem’ in a manner disarmed rational criticism. And, strange to say, even the few faults which earlier scholars did venture to point out in Milton’s poem will be found in that of Salandra. There is the same superabundance of allegory; the same confusion of spirit and matter among the supernatural persons; the same lengthy astronomical treatise; the same personification of Sin and Death; the same medley of Christian and pagan mythology; the same tedious historico-theological disquisition at the end of both poems.

For the rest, it is to be hoped that we have outgrown our fastidiousness on some of these points. Theological fervour has abated, and in a work of the pure imagination, as ‘Paradise Lost’ is now—is it not?—considered to be, there is nothing incongruous or offensive in an amiable commingling of Semitic and Hellenic deities after the approved Italian recipe; nor do a few long words about geography or science disquiet us any more. Milton was not writing for an uncivilized mob, and his occasional displays of erudition will represent to a cultured person only those breathing spaces so refreshing in all epic poetry. That Milton’s language is saturated with Latinisms and Italianisms is perfectly true. His English may not have been good enough for his contemporaries. But it is quite good enough for us. That ‘grand manner’ which Matthew Arnold claimed for Milton, that sustained pitch of kingly elaboration and fullness, is not wholly an affair of high moral tone; it results in part from the humbler ministrations of words happily chosen—from a felicitous alloy of Mediterranean grace and Saxon mettle. For, whether consciously or not, we cannot but be influenced by the _colour-effects_ of mere words, that arouse in us definite but indefinable moods of mind. To complain of the foreign phraseology and turns of thought in ‘Paradise Lost’ would be the blackest ingratitude nowadays, seeing that our language has become enriched by steady gleams of pomp and splendour due, in large part, to the peculiar _lustre_ of Milton’s comely importations.

XXII THE “GREEK” SILA

It was to be the Sila in earnest, this time. I would traverse the whole country, from the Coscile valley to Catanzaro, at the other end. Arriving from Cosenza the train deposited me, once more, at the unlovely station of Castrovillari. I looked around the dusty square, half-dazed by the sunlight—it was a glittering noonday in July—but the postal waggon to Spezzano Albanese, my first resting-point, had not yet arrived. Then a withered old man, sitting on a vehicle behind the sorry skeleton of a horse, volunteered to take me there at once; we quickly came to terms; it was too hot, we both agreed, to waste breath in bargaining. With the end of his whip he pointed out the church of Spezzano on its hilltop; a proud structure it looked at this distance, though nearer acquaintance reduced it to extremely humble proportions.

The Albanian Spezzano (Spezzano Grande is another place) lies on the main road from Castrovillari to Cosenza, on the summit of a long-stretched tongue of limestone which separates the Crati river from the Esaro; this latter, after flowing into the Coscile, joins its waters with the Crati, and so closes the promontory. An odd geographical feature, this low stretch, viewed from the greater heights of Sila or Pollino; one feels inclined to take a broom and sweep it into the sea, so that the waters may mingle sooner.

Our road ascended the thousand feet in a sinuous ribbon of white dust, and an eternity seemed to pass as we crawled drowsily upwards to the music of the cicadas, under the simmering blue sky. There was not a soul in sight; a hush had fallen upon all things; great Pan was brooding over the earth. At last we entered the village, and here, once more, deathlike stillness reigned; it was the hour of post-prandial slumber.

At our knocking the proprietor of the inn, situated in a side-street, descended. But he was in bad humour, and held out no hopes of refreshment. Certain doctors and government officials, he said, were gathered together in his house, telegraphically summoned to consult about a local case of cholera. As to edibles, the gentlemen had lunched, and nothing was left, absolutely nothing; it had been _uno sterminio_—an extermination—of all he possessed. The prospect of walking about the burning streets till evening did not appeal to me, and as this was the only inn at Spezzano I insisted, first gently, then forcibly—in vain. There was not so much as a chair to sit upon, he avowed; and therewith retired into his cool twilight.

Despairing, I entered a small shop wherein I had observed the only signs of life so far—an Albanian woman spinning in patriarchal fashion. It was a low-ceilinged room, stocked with candles, seeds, and other commodities which a humble householder might desire to purchase, including certain of those water-gugglets of Corigliano ware in whose shapely contours something of the artistic dreamings of old Sybaris still seems to linger. The proprietress, clothed in gaudily picturesque costume, greeted me with a smile and the easy familiarity which I have since discovered to be natural to all these women. She had a room, she said, where I could rest; there was also food, such as it was, cheese, and wine, and——

“Fruit?” I queried.

“Ah, you like fruit? Well, we may not so much as speak about it just now—the cholera, the doctors, the policeman, the prison! I was going to say _salami.”_

Salami? I thanked her. I know Calabrian pigs and what they feed on, though it would be hard to describe in the language of polite society.

Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language—these folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility—which seemed to my unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish. Very patiently, she gave me a long lesson during which I thought to pick up a few words and phrases, but the upshot of it all was:

“You’ll never learn it. You have begun a hundred years too late.”

I tried her with modern Greek, but among such fragments as remained on my tongue after a lapse of over twenty years, only hit upon one word that she could understand.

“Quite right!” she said encouragingly. “Why don’t you always speak properly? And now, let me hear a little of your own language.”

I gave utterance to a few verses of Shakespeare, which caused considerable merriment.

“Do you mean to tell me,” she asked, “that people really talk like that?”

“Of course they do.”

“And pretend to understand what it means?”

“Why, naturally.”

“Maybe they do,” she agreed. “But only when they want to be thought funny by their friends.”

The afternoon drew on apace, and at last the pitiless sun sank to rest. I perambulated Spezzano in the gathering twilight; it was now fairly alive with people. An unclean place; an epidemic of cholera would work wonders here. . . .

At 9.30 p.m. the venerable coachman presented himself, by appointment; he was to drive me slowly (out of respect for his horse) through the cool hours of the night as far as Vaccarizza, on the slopes of the Greek Sila, where he expected to arrive early in the morning. (And so he did; at half-past five.) Not without more mirth was my leave-taking from the good shopwoman; something, apparently, was hopelessly wrong with the Albanian words of farewell which I had carefully memorized from our preceding lesson. She then pressed a paper parcel into my hand.

“For the love of God,” she whispered, “silence! Or we shall all be in jail to-morrow.”

It contained a dozen pears.

Driving along, I tried to enter into conversation with the coachman who, judging by his face, was a mine of local lore. But I had come too late; the poor old man was so weakened by age and infirmities that he cared little for talk, his thoughts dwelling, as I charitably imagined, on his wife and children, all dead and buried (so he said) many long years ago. He mentioned, however, the _diluvio,_ the deluge, which I have heard spoken of by older people, among whom it is a fixed article of faith. This deluge is supposed to have affected the whole Crati valley, submerging towns and villages. In proof, they say that if you dig near Tarsia below the present river-level, you will pass through beds of silt and ooze to traces of old walls and cultivated land. Tarsia used to lie by the river-side, and was a flourishing place, according to the descriptions of Leandro Alberti and other early writers; floods and malaria have now forced it to climb the hills.

The current of the Crati is more spasmodic and destructive than in classical times when the river was “navigable”; and to one of its inundations may be due this legend of the deluge; to the same one, maybe, that affected the courses of this river and the Coscile, mingling their waters which used to flow separately into the Ionian. Or it may be a hazy memory of the artificial changing of the riverbed when the town of Sybaris, lying between these two rivers, was destroyed. Yet the streams are depicted as entering the sea apart in old maps such as those of Magini, Fiore, Coronelli, and Cluver; and the latter writes that “near the mouth of the Crati there flows into the same sea a river vulgarly called Cochile.”[1] This is important. It remains to be seen whether this statement is the result of a personal visit, or whether he simply repeated the old geography. His text in many places indicates a personal acquaintance with southern Italy—_Italiam_, says Heinsius, _non semel peragravit—_and he may well have been tempted to investigate a site like that of Sybaris. If so, the change in the river courses and possibly this “deluge” has taken place since his day.

[1] In the earlier part of Rathgeber’s astonishing “Grossgriechenland und Pythagoras” (1866) will be found a good list of old maps of the country.

Deprived of converse, I relapsed into a doze, but soon woke up with a start. The carriage had stopped; it was nearly midnight; we were at Terranova di Sibari, whose houses were lit up by the silvery beams of the moon.

Thurii—death-place of Herodotus! How one would like to see this place by daylight. On the ancient site, which lies at a considerable distance, they have excavated antiquities, a large number of which are in the possession of the Marchese Galli at Castrovillari. I endeavoured to see his museum, but found it inaccessible for “family reasons.” The same answer was given me in regard to a valuable private library at Rossano, and annoying as it may be, one cannot severely blame such local gentlemen for keeping their collections to themselves. What have they to gain from the visits of inquisitive travellers?

During these meditations on my part, the old man hobbled busily to and fro with a bucket, bearing water from a fountain near at hand wherewith to splash the carriage-wheels. He persisted in this singular occupation for an unreasonably long time. Water was good for the wheels, he explained; it kept them cool.

At last we started, and I began to slumber once more. The carriage seemed to be going down a steep incline; endlessly it descended, with a pleasant swaying motion. . . . Then an icy shiver roused me from my dreams. It was the Crati whose rapid waves, fraught with unhealthy chills, rippled brightly in the moonlight. We crossed the malarious valley, and once more touched the hills.

From those treeless slopes there streamed forth deliciously warm emanations stored up during the scorching hours of noon; the short scrub that clothed them was redolent of that peculiar Calabrian odour which haunts one like a melody—an odour of dried cistus and other aromatic plants, balsamic by day, almost overpowering at this hour. To aid and diversify the symphony of perfume, I lit a cigar, and then gave myself up to contemplation of the heavenly bodies. We passed a solitary man, walking swiftly with bowed head. What was he doing there?

“Lupomanaro,” said the driver.

A werewolf. . . .

I had always hoped to meet with a werewolf on his nocturnal rambles, and now my wish was gratified. But it was disappointing to see him in human garb—even werewolves, it seems, must march with the times. This enigmatical growth of the human mind flourishes in Calabria, but is not popular as a subject of conversation. The more old-fashioned werewolves cling to the true _versipellis_ habits, and in that case only the pigs, the inane Calabrian pigs, are dowered with the faculty of distinguishing them in daytime, when they look like any other “Christian.” There is a record, in Fiore’s book, of an epidemic of lycanthropy that attacked the boys of Cassano. (Why only the boys?) It began on 31 July, 1210; and the season of the year strikes me as significant.

After that I fell asleep in good earnest, nor did I wake up again till the sun was peering over the eastern hills. We were climbing up a long slope; the Albanian settlements of Vaccarizza and San Giorgio lay before us and, looking back, I still saw Spezzano on its ridge; it seemed so close that a gunshot could have reached it.

These non-Italian villages date from the centuries that followed the death of Scanderbeg, when the Grand Signior consolidated his power. The refugees arrived in flocks from over the sea, and were granted tracts of wild land whereon to settle—some of them on this incline of the Sila, which was accordingly called “Greek” Sila, the native confusing these foreigners with the Byzantines whose dwellings, as regards Calabria, are now almost exclusively confined to the distant region of Aspromonte. Colonies of Albanians are scattered all over South Italy, chiefly in Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily; a few are in the north and centre—there is one on the Po, for instance, now reduced to 200 inhabitants; most of these latter have become absorbed into the surrounding Italian element. Angelo Masci (reprinted 1846) says there are 59 villages of them, containing altogether 83,000 inhabitants—exclusive of Sicily; Morelli (1842) gives their total population for Italy and Sicily as 103,466. If these figures are correct, the race must have multiplied latterly, for I am told there are now some 200,000 Albanians in the kingdom, living in about 80 villages. This gives approximately 2500 for each settlement—a likely number, if it includes those who are at present emigrants in America. There is a voluminous literature on the subject of these strangers, the authors of which are nearly all Albanians themselves. The fullest account of older conditions may well be that contained in the third volume of Rodotà’s learned work (1758); the ponderous Francesco Tajani (1886) brings affairs up to date, or nearly so. If only he had provided his book with an index!

There were troubles at first. Arriving, as they did, solely “with their shirts and rhapsodies” (so one of them described it to me)—that is, despoiled of everything, they indulged in robberies and depredations somewhat too freely even for those free days, with the result that ferocious edicts were issued against them, and whole clans wiped out. It was a case of necessity knowing no law. But in proportion as the forests were hewn down and crops sown, they became as respectable as their hosts. They are bilingual from birth, one might almost say, and numbers of the men also express themselves correctly in English, which they pick up in the United States.

These islands of alien culture have been hotbeds of Liberalism throughout history. The Bourbons persecuted them savagely on that account, exiling and hanging the people by scores. At this moment there is a good deal of excitement going on in favour of the Albanian revolt beyond the Adriatic, and it was proposed, among other things, to organize a demonstration in Rome, where certain Roman ladies were to dress themselves in Albanian costumes and thus work upon the sentiments of the nation; but “the authorities” forbade this and every other movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude on the part of Italy—this “reactionary rigorism against every manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause.” Patriotic pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the government? “Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . . They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences, they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea.” A hard case, indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon it.[2]

[2] This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.

The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden; unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water) on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted, in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions. For even now the Italian cultivator is supposed to make, and actually does make, “voluntary” presents to his landlord at certain seasons; gifts which are always a source of irritation and, in bad years, a real hardship. The Albanians opposed themselves from the very beginning against these mediæval practices. “They do not build houses,” says an old writer, “so as not to be subject to barons, dukes, princes, or other lords. And if the owner of the land they inhabit ill-treats them, they set fire to their huts and go elsewhere.” An admirable system, even nowadays.

One would like to be here at Easter time to see the _rusalet_—those Pyrrhic dances where the young men group themselves in martial array, and pass through the streets with song and chorus, since, soon enough, America will have put an end to such customs. The old Albanian guitar of nine strings has already died out, and the double tibia—_biforem dat tibia cantum_—will presently follow suit. This instrument, familiar from classical sculpture and lore, and still used in Sicily and Sardinia, was once a favourite with the Sila shepherds, who called it “fischietto a pariglia.” But some years ago I vainly sought it in the central Sila; the answer to my enquiries was everywhere the same: they knew it quite well; so and so used to play it; certain persons in certain villages still made it—they described it accurately enough, but could not produce a specimen. Single pipes, yes; and bagpipes galore; but the _tibiæ pares_ were “out of fashion” wherever I asked for them.

Here, in the Greek Sila, I was more fortunate. A boy at the village of Macchia possessed a pair which he obligingly gave me, after first playing a song—a farewell song—a plaintive ditty that required, none the less, an excellent pair of lungs, on account of the two mouthpieces. Melodies on this double flageolet are played principally at Christmas time. The two reeds are about twenty-five centimetres in length, and made of hollow cane; in my specimen, the left hand controls four, the other six holes; the Albanian name of the instrument is “fiscarol.”

From a gentleman at Vaccarizza I received a still more valuable present—two neolithic celts (aenolithic, I should be inclined to call them) wrought in close-grained quartzite, and found not far from that village. These implements must be rare in the uplands of Calabria, as I have never come across them before, though they have been found, to my knowledge, at Savelli in the central Sila. At Vaccarizza they call such relics “pic”—they are supposed, as usual, to be thunderbolts, and I am also told that a piece of string tied to one of them cannot be burnt in fire. The experiment might be worth trying.

Meanwhile, the day passed pleasantly at Vaccarizza. I became the guest of a prosperous resident, and was treated to genuine Albanian hospitality and excellent cheer. I only wish that all his compatriots might enjoy one meal of this kind in their lifetime. For they are poor, and their homes of miserable aspect. Like all too many villages in South Italy, this one is depopulated of its male inhabitants, and otherwise dirty and neglected. The impression one gains on first seeing one of these places is more than that of Oriental decay; they are not merely ragged at the edges. It is a deliberate and sinister chaos, a note of downright anarchy—a contempt for those simple forms of refinement which even the poorest can afford. Such persons, one thinks, cannot have much sense of home and its hallowed associations; they seem to be everlastingly ready to break with the existing state of things. How different from England, where the humblest cottages, the roadways, the very stones testify to immemorial love of order, to neighbourly feelings and usages sanctioned by time!

They lack the sense of home as a fixed and old-established topographical point; as do the Arabs and Russians, neither of whom have a word expressing our “home” or “Heimat.” Here, the nearest equivalent is _la famiglia._ We think of a particular house or village where we were born and where we spent our impressionable days of childhood; these others regard home not as a geographical but as a social centre, liable to shift from place to place; they are at home everywhere, so long as their clan is about them. That acquisitive sense which affectionately adorns our meanest dwelling, slowly saturating it with memories, has been crushed out of them—if it ever existed—by hard blows of fortune; it is safer, they think, to transform the labour of their hands into gold, which can be moved from place to place or hidden from the tyrant’s eye. They have none of our sentimentality in regard to inanimate objects. Eliza Cook’s feelings towards her “old arm-chair” would strike them as savouring of childishness. Hence the unfinished look of their houses, within and without. Why expend thought and wealth upon that which may be abandoned to-morrow?