[1] This is actually as the woman told it. I can only suggest there is
some lacuna which my story-teller did not know how to fill up.
[2] _We retain the unusual spelling “Dominiddio,” which is evidently
intended to indicate the pronunciation of the Tuscan peasants._—ED.
[3] _Cf._ The Story of The Three Sisters, in the Arabian Nights.
[4] “Let us go, young men; let us go, young men, to those nice cialde,
O—— h.”
[5] Beppe’s home is more fully described in “A Tuscan Farmhouse,” p.
106.
[6] The house is small, but great its restfulness.
[7] Sacred to Jupiter, the patron of hospitality. Oh, thou, whoever
thou mayst be, who, being an honest man, art perchance fleeing those
worst of enemies, thy neighbours, enter this lonely house and rest.
[8]
Friends, enemies; Relations, serpents; Cousins, assassins; Brothers,
knives.
[9] For description of the marriage, see “A Wedding in the Pistoiese,”
p. 87.
[10] That Capoliveri was a Roman town seems to be proved by the
manuscript of a Goth, quoted as travelling in these parts in about 530
A.D. He tells us that the right name of the place is _Caputliberum_,
for that Roman exiles deported to this village, without any
difficulty, obtained the liberty of walking outside the walls within
the jurisdiction of the city. It must have been a sort of _Domicilio
Coatto_. The author of the manuscript is called by Ninci and Lambardi
_Celeteudo_ or _Celteuso_.
[11] The copper mines, mentioned by Aristotle, are no longer open. That
they were worked by the Etruscans was first proved by Raffaello Foresi,
when, in 1865, he made known the discovery of various bronze objects.
These were found by one of the Foresi peasants near the entrance into
the ancient copper mines above Portoferraio, together with a mould
for receiving the melted bronze. Finely-worked bronze ornaments were
found about the same time during an investigation made at Foresi’s
suggestion, associated in a sepulchral cavern with skulls of Etruscans
and Ligurians.
[12] “Storia dell’Isola dell’Elba.” Giuseppe Ninci. Portoferraio, 1815.
[13] qui in portoferraio nel MDCCCII fu recato pargoletto vittore
hugo qui nacque la sua parola che più tardi lava di fuoco sacro dovea
correre le vene dei popoli e forse tre anni vissuti in quest’aura cui
danno atomi il ferro ed il mare afforzando il corpo infermiccio di lui
serbavano l’orgoglio dei suoi natali alla francia la gloria del suo
nome al secolo all’umanita un apostolo e un genio immortale.
[14] napoleon the great passing by this place in MDCCCXIV. took in
the neighbouring field a ploughshare from the hands of a peasant and
himself tried to plough but the oxen rebellious to those hands which
yet had guided europe headlong fled from the furrow.
[15]
napoleon I. having conquered empires reduced kings to vassalage
overcome by the snows of russia not by arms in this hermitage through
him transformed into a palace dwelt from the 23 august to the 14
September 1814 and having tempered afresh his immortal genius on the 24
february 1815 hence darted forth to amaze anew the world at his daring.
The municipality of marciana with grateful and reverent soul to so
great a name decreed the erection of this memorial the 18 february 1863.
[16] 1897.
[17] The sky; formed, according to the ancient Finnic legend, by the
wondrous smith Ilmarinen. In the “Song of the Sampo” he boasts that he
has made it so well that “no hammer-marks remain; no pincer-marks are
seen.”
[18] The reader will recognise the allusion to cantos xxi. and xxiv. of
Dante’s “Inferno,” of which the former describes the lake of pitch in
which the barrators were tortured, and the latter the terrible valley
in which the sacrilegious Vanni Fucci and his like were tormented with
serpents.
[19] Compare, for instance, the Italian and Latin versions of the
following verse, taken from a short poem on a laurel branch which the
poet, having plucked on the Appian Way, presented to a lady friend who
bore the name of Daphne; and compare these again with the well-known
Horatian ode “Integer Vitæ”:—
“Io son, Daphne, la tua greca sorella: Che vergin bionda sul Peneo
fuggia, E verdeggiai pur ieri arbore snella Per l’Appia Via.
En soror, Daphne, tua quæ fugaci Jam pede ad Peneum pudibunda adibam;
Appiæ et nuper virui tenella Margine laurus.
Integer vitæ scelerisque purus Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu Nec
venenatis gravida sagittis, Fusce, pharetra.”
See also “Sei Odi Barbare di Giosué Carducci, con la versione Latina di
Amedeo Crivellucci.” Citta di Castello, 1885.
It must be observed in this connection that Carducci is very apt to
change a descending Horatian rhythm into an ascending Italian one,
beginning his line with an unaccented and rising to an accented
syllable. In this way he obtains much movement and swing.
[20] Reprinted by permission, from “La Perseveranza” Milano, Martedì,
20 Marzo 1900.