The saint, during his earthly career, was
always accompanied by a dog, and now likes to have him on the roof of
his sanctuary.
The Norman church attached to the Trinita lies at a lower level than
that building, having been constructed, says Lupoli, on the foundations
of a temple to Hymenaeus. It may be so; but one distrusts Lupoli. A
remarkable Norman capital, now wrought into a font, is preserved here,
and I was interested in watching the behaviour of a procession of female
pilgrims in regard to it. Trembling with emotion, they perambulated the
sacred stone, kissing every one of its corners; then they dipped their
hands into its basin, and kissed them devoutly. An old hag, the mistress
of the ceremonies, muttered: "tutti santi - tutti santi!" at each
osculation. Next, they prostrated themselves on the floor and licked
the cold stones, and after wallowing there awhile, rose up and began to
kiss a small fissure in the masonry of the wall, the old woman
whispering, "Santissimo!" A familiar spectacle, no doubt; but one which
never fails of its effect. This anti-hygienic crack in the wall, with
its suggestions of yoni-worship, attracted me so strongly that I begged
a priest to explain to me its mystical signification. But he only said,
with a touch of mediaeval contempt:
"Sono femine!"
He showed me, later on, a round Roman pillar near the entrance of the
church worn smooth by the bodies of females who press themselves between
it and the wall, in order to become mothers. The notion caused him some
amusement - he evidently thought this practice a speciality of Venosa.
In my country, I said, pillars with a contrary effect would be more
popular among the fair sex.
Lear gives another account of this phallic emblem. He says that
perambulating it hand in hand with another person, the two are sure to
remain friends for life.
This is pre-eminently a "Victorian" version.
VII
THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT
The traveller in these parts is everlastingly half-starved. Here, at
Venosa, the wine is good - excellent, in fact; but the food monotonous
and insufficient. This improper dieting is responsible for much
mischief; it induces a state of chronic exacerbation. Nobody would
believe how nobly I struggle, day and night, against its evil
suggestions. A man's worst enemy is his own empty stomach. None knew it
better than Horace.
And yet he declared that lettuces and such-like stuff sufficed him. No
doubt, no doubt. "Olives nourish me." Just so! One does not grow up in
the school of Maecenas without learning the subtle delights of the
simple life. But I would wager that after a week of such feeding as I
have now undergone at his native place, he would quickly have remembered
some urgent business to be transacted in the capital - Caesar Augustus,
me-thinks, would have desired his company. And even so, I have suddenly
woke up to the fact that Taranto, my next resting-place, besides
possessing an agreeably warm climate, has some passable restaurants. I
will pack without delay. Mount Vulture must wait. The wind alone, the
Vulturnus or south-easterly wind, is quite enough to make one despair of
climbing hills. It has blown with objectionable persistency ever since
my arrival at Venosa.
To escape from its attentions, I have been wandering about the secluded
valleys that seam this region. Streamlets meander here amid rustling
canes and a luxuriant growth of mares' tails and creepers; their banks
are shaded by elms and poplars - Horatian trees; the thickets are loud
with songs of nightingale, black-cap and oriole. These humid dells are a
different country from the uplands, wind-swept and thriftily cultivated.
It was here, yesterday, that I came upon an unexpected sight - an army of
workmen engaged in burrowing furiously into the bowels of Mother Earth.
They told me that this tunnel would presently become one of the arteries
of that vast system, the Apulian Aqueduct. The discovery accorded with
my Roman mood, for the conception and execution alike of this grandiose
project are worthy of the Romans. Three provinces where, in years of
drought, wine is cheaper than water, are being irrigated - in the teeth
of great difficulties of engineering and finance. Among other things,
there are 213 kilometres of subterranean tunnellings to be built; eleven
thousand workmen are employed; the cost is estimated at 125 million
francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more
durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans - this talent
for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive
environment and making it subservient to purposes of human
intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for
"pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle to
be overcome - an enemy.
Such was Horace's point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy
brood of tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.]
the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His
love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature
as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to
human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's lachrymae
rerum hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours
nature was conventionally stereotyped - a scenic decoration to set off
sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists wallow in her rugged
aspects. Horace never allowed phantasy to outrun intelligence; he kept
his feet on earth; man was the measure of his universe, and a sober mind
his highest attribute. Nature must be kept "in her place." Her
extrava-gances are not to be admired. This anthropocentric spirit has
made him what he is - the ideal anti-sentimentalist and anti-vulgarian.
For excess of sentiment, like all other intemperance, is the mark of
that unsober and unsteady beast - the crowd.
