_MUNGIA_
Through all the country of Pescara, San Silvestro, Fontanella, San
Rocco, even as far as Spoltore, and through all the farms of Vallelonga
beyond Allento and particularly in the little boroughs where sailors
meet near the mouth of the river,—through all this country, where
the houses are built of clay and of reeds, and the fire material
is supplied by drift wood from the sea, for many years a Catholic
rhapsodist with a barbarian and piratical name, who is as blind as the
ancient Homer, has been famous.
Mungia begins his peregrinations at the beginning of spring, and ends
them with the first frosts of October. He goes about the country,
conducted by a woman and a child. Into the peaceful gardens and
the serenity of the fields he brings his lamenting religious songs,
antiphonies, preludes and responses of the offices of the dead. His
figure is so familiar to all, that even the dogs in the backyards do
not bark at his approach. He announces his advent with a trill from his
clarionet, and at the well-known signal, the old wives come out upon
the thresholds to welcome him, place his chair under the shade of a
tree in the yard, and make inquiries as to his health. All the peasants
come from their work, and form a subdued and awed circle about him,
while with their hard hands they wipe the perspiration of toil from
their foreheads, and, still holding their implements, assume a reverent
attitude. Their bare arms and legs are knotted and misshapen from the
severe toil of the fields; their twisted bodies have taken on the hue
of the earth—working in the soil from the dawn of day, they seem to
have something in common with the trees and the roots.
A sort of religious solemnity is thrown over everything by this blind
man. It is not the sun, it is not the fulness of the earth, not the joy
of spring vegetation, not the sounds of the distant choruses that gives
to all the feeling of admiration, of devotion, and more than all, the
sadness of religion. One of the old women gives the name of a departed
relative to whom she wishes to offer songs and oblations. Mungia
uncovers his head.
His wide shining cranium appears encircled with white hair; his whole
face, which in its quiet calm has the appearance of a mask, wrinkles
up when he takes the clarionet in his mouth. Upon his temples, under
his eyes, beside his ears, around his nostrils and at the corners
of his mouth, a thousand lines become visible, some delicate, some
deep, changing with the rhythm of the music by which he is inspired.
His nerves are at a tension, and over his jaw bones the purple veins
show, like those of the turning vine-leaves in the autumn, the lower
eyelid is turned outward, showing a reddish line, over his whole face
the tough skin is tightly drawn, giving the appearance of a wonderful
carving in relief; the light plays over the face with its short, stiff,
and badly shaved beard, and over the neck, with its deep hollows,
between the long still cords which stand out prominently, flashing
like dew upon a warty and mouldy pumpkin; and, as he plays, a thousand
vibrating minor notes float out upon the air, and the humble head takes
on an appearance of mystery. His fingers press the unsteady keys of the
box-wood clarionet, and the notes pour out. The instrument itself seems
almost human, and to breathe with life, as inanimate objects which have
been long and intimately associated with men often do; the wood has an
unctuous glare; the holes, which in the winter months become the nests
of little spiders, are still filled with cobwebs and dust; the keys are
stained with verdigris; in places beeswax has been employed to cover
up breaks; the joints are held together with paper and thread, while
about the edge one can still see the ornaments of its youth. The blind
man’s voice rises weak and uncertain, his fingers move mechanically,
searching for the notes of a prelude, or an interlude of days long
passed.
His long, deformed hands, with knots upon the phalanges of the first
three fingers, and with the nails of his thumbs depressed and white
in colour, resemble somewhat the hands of a decrepit monkey; the backs
are of the unhealthy colour of decayed fruit, a mixture of pink, yellow
and blue shades; the palms show a net-work of lines and furrows, and
between the fingers the skin is blistered.
When he has finished the prelude, Mungia begins to sing, “_Libera Me
Domine_,” and “_Ne Recorderis_,” slowly, and upon a modulation of five
notes. The Latin words of the song are interspersed with his native
idioms, and now and then, to fill out the metrical rhythm, he inserts
an adverb ending in _ente_, which he follows with heavy rhymes; he
raises his voice in these parts, then lowers it in the less fatiguing
lines. The name of Jesus runs often through the rhapsody; not without
a certain dramatic movement. The passion of Jesus is narrated in verses
of five lines.
The peasants listen with an air of devotion, watching the blind man’s
mouth as he sings. In the season, the chorus of the vintagers comes
from the fields, vieing with the notes of the pious songs; Mungia,
whose hearing is weak, sings on of the mysteries of death; his lips
adhere to his toothless gums, and the saliva runs down and drips
from his chin; placing the clarionet again to his lips, he begins the
intermezzo, then takes up the rhymes again, and so continues to the
end. His recompense is a small measure of corn and a bottle of wine or
a bunch of onions, and sometimes a hen.
He rises from his chair, a tall, emaciated figure, with bent back and
knees turning a little backward. He wears upon his head a large green
cap, and no matter what the season, he is wrapped in a peasant cloak
falling from his throat below his knees and fastened with two brass
buckles. He moves with difficulty, at times stopping to cough.
When October comes, and the vineyards have been vintaged and the yards
are filled with mud and gravel, he withdraws into a garret, which he
shares with a tailor who has a paralytic wife, and a street pauper
with nine children who are variously afflicted with scrofula and the
rickets. On pleasant days he is taken to the arch of Portanova, and
sits upon a rock in the sun, while he softly sings the “_De Profundis_”
to keep his throat in condition. On these occasions, mendicants of
all sorts gather around him, men with dislocated limbs, hunchbacks,
cripples, paralytics, lepers, women covered with wounds and scabs,
toothless women, and those without eyebrows and without hair; children,
green as locusts, emaciated, with sharp, savage eyes, like birds of
prey; taciturn, with mouths already withered; children who bear in
their blood diseases inherited from the monster Poverty; all of that
miserable, degenerate rabble, the remnants of a decrepit race. These
ragged children of God come to gather about the singer, and speak to
him as one of themselves.
Then Mungia graciously begins to sing to the waiting crowd. Chiachiu,
a native of Silvi, approaches, dragging himself with great difficulty,
helping himself with the palms of his hands, on which he wears a
covering of leather; when he reaches the group about Mungia, he
stops, holding in his hands his right foot, which is twisted and
contorted like a root. Strigia, an uncertain, repugnant figure, a
senile hermaphrodite with bright red carbuncles covering neck and
grey locks on the temples, of which the creature seems to be proud,
the top and back of the head covered with wool like a vulture, next
approaches. Then come the Mammalucchi, three idiot brothers, who seem
to have been brought forth from the union of man and goat, so manifest
in their faces are the ovine features. The oldest of the three has
some soft, degenerated bulbs protruding from the orbs of his eyes,
of a bluish colour, much like oval bags of pulp about to rot. The
peculiar affliction of the youngest is in his ear, the lobe of which
is abnormally inflated, and of the violet hue of a fig. The three come
together, with bags of strings upon their backs.
The Ossei comes also, a lean, serpent-like man with an olive-coloured
face, a flat nose with a singular aspect of malice and deceit, which
betrays his gipsy origin, and eyelids which turn up like those of
a pilot who sails over stormy seas. Following him is Catalana di
Gissi, a woman of uncertain age, her skin covered with long reddish
blisters, and on her forehead spots looking like copper coins,
hipless, like a bitch after confinement: she is called the Venus of
the Mendicants,—the fountain of Love at which all the thirsty ones are
quenched.
Then comes Jacobbe of Campli, an old man with greenish-coloured hair
like some of the mechanics’ work in brass; then industrious Gargala in
a vehicle built of the remains of broken boats, still smeared with tar;
then Constantino di Corropoli, the cynic, whose lower lip has a growth
which gives him the appearance of holding a piece of raw meat between
his teeth. And still they come, inhabitants of the woods who have moved
along the course of the river from the hills to the sea; all gather
around the rhapsodist in the sun.
Mungia then sings with studied gestures and strange postures. His soul
is filled with exaltation, an aureole of glory surrounds him, for now
he gives himself freely to his Muse, unrestrained in his singing. He
scarcely hears the clamour of applause which arises from the swarming
mendicants as he closes.
At the end of the song, as the warm sun has left the spot where the
group is assembled and is climbing the Corinthian columns of the arch
of the Capitol, the mendicants bid the blind man farewell and disperse
through the neighbouring lands. Usually Chiachiu di Silvi, holding his
deformed foot, and the dwarfed brothers remain after the others have
gone, asking alms of passers-by, while Mungia sits silent, thinking,
perhaps, of the triumphs of his youth when Lucicoppelle, Golpo di
Casoli, and Quattorece were alive.
Oh, the glorious band of Mungia! The small orchestra had won through
all the lower valley of Pescara a lofty fame. Golpo di Casoli played
the viola. He was a greyish little man, like the lizards on the rocks,
with the skin of his face and neck wrinkled and membranous like that of
a turtle boiled in water. He wore a sort of Phrygian cap which covered
his ears on the sides. He played on his viola with quick gestures,
pressing the instrument with his sharp chin and with his contracted
fingers hammering the keys in an ostentatious effort, as do the monkeys
of wandering mountebanks.
After him came Quattorece with his bass viol slung over his stomach by
a strap of ass-leather; he was as tall and thin as a wax candle, and
throughout his person was a predominance of orange tints; he looked
like one of those monochromatic painted figures in stiff attitudes
which ornament some of the poetry of Castelli; his eyes shone with
the yellow transparency of a shepherd dog’s, the cartilage of his
great ears opened like those of a bat against which an orange light
is thrown, his clothes were of some tobacco-coloured cloth, such as
hunters usually wear; while his old viol, ornamented with feathers,
with silver adornments, bows, images, and medals, looked like some
barbarian instrument from which one might expect strange sounds
to issue. But Lucicoppelle, holding across his chest his rough,
two-stringed guitar, well tuned in diapason, came in last, with the
bold, dancing step of a rustic Figaro. He was the joyful spirit of the
orchestra, the greenest one in age and strength, the liveliest and the
brightest. A heavy tuft of crisp hair fell over his forehead under
a scarlet cap, and in his ears shone womanlike, two silver clasps.
He loved wine as a musical toast. To serenades in honour of beauty,
to open-air dances, to gorgeous, boisterous feasts, to weddings, to
christenings, to votive feasts and funeral rites, the band of Mungia
would hasten, expected and acclaimed. The nuptial procession would move
through the streets strewn with bulrush blossoms and sweet-scented
herbs, greeted with joyful shouts and salutes. Five mules, decorated
with wreaths, carried the wedding presents. In a cart drawn by two oxen
whose harness was wound with ribbons, and whose backs were covered
with draperies, were seated the bridal couple; from the cart dangled
boilers, earthen vessels, and copper pots, which shook and rattled with
the jolting of the vehicle; chairs, tables, sofas, all sorts of antique
shapes of household furniture oscillated, creaking, about them; damask
skirts, richly figured with flowers, embroidered waist-coats, silken
aprons, and all sorts of articles of women’s apparel shone in the sun
in bright array, while a distaff, the symbol of domestic virtue, piled
on top with the linen, was outlined against the blue sky like a golden
staff.
The women relatives, carrying upon their heads baskets of grain,
upon the top of which was a loaf, and upon the loaf a flower, came
next in hierarchical order, singing as they walked. This train of
simple, graceful figures reminded one of the canephoræ in the Greek
bas-reliefs. Reaching the house, the women took the baskets from their
heads, and threw a handful of wheat at the bride, pronouncing a ritual
augury, invoking fecundity and abundance. The mother, also, observed
the ceremony of throwing grain, weeping copiously as with a brush she
touched her daughter on the chest, shoulders and forehead, and speaking
doleful words of love as she did so.
Then in the courtyard, under a roof of branches, the feast began.
Mungia, who had not yet lost his eyesight nor felt the burden of
years upon him, erect in all the magnificence of a green coat,
perspiring and beaming, blew with all the power of his lungs upon
his clarionet, beating time with his foot. Golpo di Casoli struck his
violin energetically, Quattorece exerted himself in a wild endeavour to
keep up with the crescendo of the Moorish dance, while Lucicoppelle,
standing straight with his head up, holding aloft in his left hand
the key of his guitar, and with the right pricking on two strings
the metric chords, looked down at the women, laughing gaily among the
flowers.
Then the “Master of Ceremonies” brought in the viands on large
painted plates and the cloud of vapour rising from the hot dishes
faded away among the foliage of the trees. The amphoras of wine, with
their well-worn handles, were passed around from one to another, the
men stretched their arms out across the table between the loaves of
bread, scattered with anise seeds, and the cheese cakes, round as full
moons, and helped themselves to olives, oranges and almonds. The smell
of spice mingled with the fresh, vaporous odour of the vegetables;
sometimes the guests offered the bride goblets of wine in which were
small pieces of jewelry, or necklaces of great grape stones like a
string of golden fruit. After a while the exhilarating effects of the
liquor began to be felt, and the crowd grew hilarious with Bacchic joy
and then Mungia, advancing with uncovered head and holding in his hands
a glass filled to the rim, would sing the beautiful deistic ritual
which to feasters throughout the land of Abruzzi gave a disposition for
friendly toasts:
“To the health of all these friends of mine, united, I drink this wine
so pure and fine.”