DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN
Taranto has a very interesting Museum. I went there with an
introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out to
me all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in the little
galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, save
for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a pleasant novelty,
and bestirred himself for my comfort when I wanted to make sketches.
Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one enters. Presumably, all
the Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been here, and
strangers are few.
Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in some
kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons. One
peers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturing
their date, their circumstances; some of them may have dwelt in the old
time on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum. Like other
people who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum
loved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable for
irreverent farce, for parodies of the great drama of Athens. And here
is testimony to the fact: all manner of comic masks, of grotesque
visages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and
goggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the
anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness.
You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the
Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the
uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines--with results that were
no laughing matter.
I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of the
Museum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could find
himself at Taranto without turning in thought to the Galaesus, and
wishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite sure of
its position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little Sea, which by
some is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly give it the name
of Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that direction, to see
and judge for myself.
To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass the
railway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official with
whom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that the
Gialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres. That
I purposed walking such a distance to see an insignificant stream
excited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my interlocutor;
again and again he assured me it was not worth while, repeating
emphatically, "_Non c'e novita_." But I went my foolish way. Of two or
three peasants or fishermen on the road I asked the name of the little
river I was approaching; they answered, "Gialtrezze." Then came a man
carrying a gun, whose smile and greeting invited question. "Can you
tell me the name of the stream which flows into the sea just beyond
here?" "Signore, it is the Galeso."
My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my
informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso
against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously I
took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself.
The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises amid a bed of great
reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadth
of some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dusty
fields, and a few hoary olives.
The Galaesus?--the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a
famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by
a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graecia
have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been
great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had
always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so
insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward,
and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.
There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its
little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish
tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With
half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped
upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years
ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and
goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats
of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard
by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth
lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day
had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace held
earth and sky.
"Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not to
Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; where
heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunny
hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian----" The lines
of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,
who, tradition has it, wrote his _Eclogues_ hereabouts. Of course, the
country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a
sad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still with
wonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyond
conception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. The
scent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanished
world.
After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as some
hold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Taranto
into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of
the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in
other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give
ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search
will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus--"dulce Galaesi
flumen"--is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle
with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those
reeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of a
Naiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, for
there remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistens
in the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across the
blue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.
Let Taranto try as it will to be modern and progressive, there is a
retarding force which shows little sign of being overcome--the profound
superstition of the people. A striking episode of street life reminded
me how near akin were the southern Italians of to-day to their
predecessors in what are called the dark ages; nay, to those more
illustrious ancestors who were so ready to believe that an ox had
uttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near the
swing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the inner
and the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who was
exhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute the
male listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossed
themselves. When I had pressed near enough to hear the speaker, I found
he was just finishing a wonderful story, in which he himself might or
might not have faith, but which plainly commanded the credit of his
auditors. Having closed his narrative, the fellow began to sell it in
printed form--little pamphlets with a rude illustration on the cover. I
bought the thing for a soldo, and read it as I walked away.
A few days ago--thus, after a pious exordium, the relation began--in
that part of Italy called Marca, there came into a railway station a
Capuchin friar of grave, thoughtful, melancholy aspect, who besought
the station-master to allow him to go without ticket by the train just
starting, as he greatly desired to reach the Sanctuary of Loreto that
day, and had no money to pay his fare The official gave a contemptuous
refusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged all
manner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The two
engines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steam
away--but, behold, _con grande stupore di tutti_, the waggons moved not
at all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts to
start the train proved useless. Alone of the people who viewed this
inexplicable event, the friar showed no astonishment; he remarked
calmly, that so long as he was refused permission to travel by it, the
train would not stir. At length _un ricco signore_ found a way out of
the difficulty by purchasing the friar a third-class ticket; with a
grave reproof to the station-master, the friar took his seat, and the
train went its way.
But the matter, of course, did not end here. Indignant and amazed, and
wishing to be revenged upon that _frataccio_, the station-master
telegraphed to Loreto, that in a certain carriage of a certain train
was travelling a friar, whom it behoved the authorities to arrest for
having hindered the departure of the said train for fifteen minutes,
and also for the offense of mendicancy within a railway station.
Accordingly, the Loreto police sought the offender, but, in the
compartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however,
lay a letter couched in these terms: "He who was in this waggon under
the guise of a humble friar, has now ascended into the arms of his
_Santissima Madre Maria_. He wished to make known to the world how easy
it is for him to crush the pride of unbelievers, or to reward those who
respect religion."
Nothing more was discoverable; wherefore the learned of the Church--_i
dotti della chiesa_--came to the conclusion that under the guise of a
friar there had actually appeared "_N. S. G. C._" The Supreme Pontiff
and his prelates had not yet delivered a judgment in the matter, but
there could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce the
authenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the good
Christian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, this
remarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I have
omitted, but the translation, as far as it goes, is literal. Doubtless
many a humble Tarentine spelt it through that evening, with boundless
wonder, and thought such an intervention of Providence worthy of being
talked about, until the next stabbing case in his street provided a
more interesting topic.
Possibly some malevolent rationalist might note that the name of the
railway station where this miracle befell was nowhere mentioned. Was it
not open to him to go and make inquiries at Loreto?