True It Is That Shepherds Have Ample
Opportunities Of Sporting With Amaryllis In The Shade; Opportunities
Which, To My Certain Knowledge, They Do Not Neglect.
Theocritus knew it
well enough.
But, in a general way, he is niggardly with the precious
commodity of kisses; he seems to have thought that in literature, if not
in real life, one can have too much of a good thing. Also, being a
southerner, he could not have trusted his young folks to remain
eternally at the kissing-stage, after the pattern of our fish-like
English lovers. Such behaviour would have struck him as improbable;
possibly immoral. . . .
From where I sat one may trace a road that winds upwards into the Sila,
past Pallagorio. Along its sides are certain mounded heaps and the smoke
of refining works. These are mines of that dusky sulphur which I had
observed being drawn in carts through the streets of Cotrone. There are
some eight or ten of them, they tell me, discovered about thirty years
ago - this is all wrong: they are mentioned in 1571 - and employing
several hundred workmen. It had been my intention to visit these
excavations. But now, in the heat of day, I wavered; the distance, even
to the nearest of them, seemed inordinately great; and just as I had
decided to look for a carnage with a view of being driven there (that
curse of conscientiousness!) an amiable citizen snatched me up as his
guest for luncheon. He led me, weakly resisting, to a vaulted chamber
where, amid a repast of rural delicacies and the converse of his spouse,
all such fond projects were straightway forgotten.
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