That the connecting link between Calabria and Greece was at one time
completely cut in two, is an assumption which is commonly made, but
it is scarcely a proved fact. What happened to the Italian Greeks on
their surrender to Rome? In a few instances they certainly disappeared
with extreme rapidity. Aristoxenus, the peripatetic musician, relates
of the Poseidonians--"whose fate it was, having been originally Greek,
to be barbarised, becoming Tuscans or Romans," that they still met to
keep one annual festival, at which, after commemorating their ancient
customs, they wept together over their lost nationality. This is
the pathetic record of men who could not hope. In a little while,
Poseidonia was an obscure Roman town famous only for its beautiful
roses. But the process of "barbarisation" was not everywhere so swift.
Along the coast-line from Rhegium to Tarentum, Magna Graecia, in the
strict use of the term, the people are known to have clung so long
to their old language and their old conditions of life that it is at
least open to doubt if they were not clinging to them still when it
came to be again a habit with Greeks to seek an Italian home. In the
ninth and tenth centuries the tide of Byzantine supremacy swept into
Calabria from Constantinople, only, however, to subside almost as
suddenly as it advanced. Once more history well-nigh loses sight of
the Greeks of Italy. Yet at a moment of critical importance to modern
learning their existence was honourably felt. Petrarch's friend and
master, Barlaam, who carried the forgotten knowledge of Homer across
the Alps, was by birth a Calabrian. In Barlaam's day there were large
communities of Greeks both in Calabria and in Terra d'Otranto. A
steady decrease from then till now has brought their numbers down to
about 22,800 souls in all. These few survivors speak a language which
is substantially the same as modern Greek, with the exceptions that it
is naturally affected by the surrounding Italic dialects and that it
contains hardly a Turkish or a Sclavonic word. Their precise origin is
still a subject of conjecture. Soon after Niebuhr had hailed them as
Magna Graecians pure and simple, they were pronounced offhand to be
quite recent immigrants; then the date of their arrival was assigned
to the reign of the first or second Basil; and lastly there is a
growing tendency to push it back still further and even to admit that
some strain of the blood of the original colonists may have entered
into the elements of their descent. On the whole, it seems easier to
believe that though their idiom was divided from the Romaic, it yet
underwent much the same series of modifications, than to suppose them
to have been in Greece when the language of that country was saturated
with Sclavonic phrases, which have only been partly weeded out within
the last thirty years.
Henry Swinburne visited the Greek settlements in 1780 or thereabouts,
but like most of his contemporaries he mixes up the Greek with the
Albanians, of whom there are considerable colonies in Calabria, dating
from the death of Skanderbeg. Even in this century a German savant
was assured at Naples that the so-called Greeks were one and all
Albanians. The confusion is not taken as a compliment. No one has
stayed in the Hellenic kingdom without noticing the pride that goes
along with the name of Greek--a pride which it is excusable to smile
at, but which yet has both its touching and its practical aspect, for
it has remade a nation. The Greeks of Southern Italy have always had
their share of a like feeling. "We are not ashamed of our race,
Greeks we are, and we glory in it," wrote De Ferraris, a Greek born
at Galatone in 1444, and the words would be warmly endorsed by the
enlightened citizens of Bova and Ammendolea, who quarrel as to which
of the two places gave birth to Praxiteles. The letterless classes do
not understand the grounds of the Magna Graecian pretensions, but they
too have a vague pleasure in calling themselves Greek and a vague idea
of superiority over their "Latin" fellow-countrymen. "Wake up," sings
the peasant of Martignano in Terra d'Otranto, "wake up early to hear a
Grecian lay, so that the Latins may not learn it."
Fsunna, fsunna, na cusi ena sonetto
Grico, na mi to matun i Latini.
Bova is the chief place in Calabria where Greek survives. The
inhabitants call it "Vua," or simply "Hora." The word "hora," _the
city_, is applied by the Greeks of Terra d'Otranto to that part of
their hamlets which an Englishman would call "the old village." It is
not generally known that "city" is used in an identical sense by old
country-folks in the English Eastern counties. The Bovesi make a third
of the whole Greek-speaking population of Calabria, and Bova has the
dignity of being an episcopal seat, though its bishop has moved his
residence to the Marina, a sort of seaside suburb, five miles distant
from the town. Thirty years ago the ecclesiastical authorities were
already agitating for the transfer, but the people opposed it till the
completion of the railway to Reggio and the opening of a station at
the Marina di Bova settled the case against them. The cathedral, the
four or five lesser churches, the citadel, even the Ghetto, all tell
of the unwritten age of Bova's prosperity. Old street-names perpetuate
the memory of the familiar spirits of the place; the Lamiae who lived
in a particular quarter, the _Fullitto_ who frequented the lane under
the cathedral wall. Ignoring Praxiteles, the poorer Bovesi set faith
in a tradition that their ancestors dwelt on the coast, and that it
was in consequence of Saracenic incursions that they abandoned their
homes and built a town on the crags of Aspromonte near the lofty
pastures to which herds of cattle (_bovi_) were driven in the summer.
The name of Bova would thus be accounted for, and its site bears out
the idea that it was chosen as a refuge. The little Greek city hangs
in air. To more than one traveller toiling up to it by the old Reggio
route it has seemed suggestive of an optical delusion. There is
refreshment to be had on the way: a feast for the sight in pink and
white flowers of gigantic oleanders; a feast for the taste in the
sweet and perfumed fruit of the wild vine. Still it is disturbing
to see your destination suspended above your head at a distance that
seems to get longer instead of shorter. Some comfort may be got from
hearing Greek spoken at Ammendolea, itself an eyrie, and again at
Condufuri. A last, long, resolute effort brings you, in spite of your
forebodings, to Bova, real as far as stones and fountains, men and
women, and lightly-clothed children can make it; yet still half a
dream, you think, when you sit on the terrace at sunset and look
across the blue Ionian to the outline, unbroken from base to crown, of
"Snowy AEtna, nurse of endless frost, the prop of heaven."
There is plenty of activity among the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. Many
of them contrive to get a livelihood out of the chase; game of
every sort abounds, and wolves are not extinct. In the mountaineers'
cottages, which shelter a remarkable range of animals, an infant wolf
sometimes lies down with a tame sheep; whilst on the table hops a
domesticated eagle, taken when young from its nest in defiance of
the stones dropped upon the robber by the outraged parent-birds. The
peasants till the soil, sow corn, plant vegetables, harvest the olives
and grapes, gather the prickly pears, make cheese, tend cattle, and
are wise in the care of hives. It is a kind of wisdom of which their
race has ever had the secret. The Greek Calabrians love bees as they
were loved by the idyllic poets. "Ehi tin cardia to melissa" ("he has
the heart of a bee"), is said of a kindly and helpful man. Sicilian
Hybla cannot have yielded more excellent honey than Bova and
Ammendolea. It is sad to think of, but it is stated on good authority
that the people of those lofty cities quarrel over their honey as much
as about Praxiteles. Somehow envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness
find a way into the best of real idylls. You may live at the top of
a mountain and cordially detest your neighbour. The folk of Condufuri
greet the folk of Bova as Vutani dogs, which is answered by the
epithet of Spesi-spasu, all the more disagreeable because nobody knows
what it means. In Terra d'Otranto the dwellers in the various Greek
hamlets call each other thieves, asses, simpletons, and necromancers.
The Italian peasants are inclined to class Greeks and Albanians alike
in the category of "Turchi," and though the word Turk, as used by
Italians, in some cases simply means foreign, it is a questionable
term to apply to individuals. The Greeks, with curious scorn, are
content to fling back the charge of Latin blood.
When the day's work is done, comes the frugal evening meal; a dish of
_ricotta_, a glass of wine and snow. Wine is cheap in Calabria, where
the finest variety is of a white sweet kind called _Greco_; and the
heights of Aspromonte provide a supply of frozen snow, which is a
necessary rather than a luxury in this climate. About the hour of
Avemmaria the bagpipers approach. In the mountains the flocks
follow the wild notes of the "Zampogna" or "Ceramedda," unerringly
distinguishing the music of their own shepherd. A visit from the
Zampognari to hill-town, or village sets all the world on the alert.
There is gossiping, and dancing, and the singing of songs, in which
expression takes the place of air. Two young men sing together,
without accompaniment, or one sings alone, accompanied by bagpipe,
violin, and guitar. So the evening passes by, till the moon rises and
turns the brief, early darkness into a more glorified day. The little
hum of human sound dies in the silence of the hills; only perhaps a
single clear, sweet voice prolongs the monotone of love.
The Italian complimentary alphabet is unknown to the Greek poets. The
person whom they address is not apostrophised as Beauty or Beloved,
or star, or angel, or _Fior eterno_, or _Delicatella mia_. They do not
carry about ready for use a pocketful of poetic-sugared rose-leaves,
nor have they the art of making each word serve as an act of homage or
a caress. It is true that "caxedda," a word that occurs frequently in
their songs, has been resolved by etymologists into "pupil of my eye;"
but for the people it means simply "maiden." The Greek Calabrian gives
one the impression of rarely saying a thing because it is a pretty
thing to say. If he treats a fanciful idea, he presents it, as it
were, in the rough. Take for instance the following:--
Oh! were I earth, and thou didst tread on me,
Or of thy shoe the sole, this too were sweet!
Or were I just the dress that covers thee,
So might I fall entangling round thy feet.
Were I the crock, and thou didst strike on me,
And we two stooped to catch the waters fleet;
Or were I just the dress that covers thee,
So without me thou couldst not cross the street.
Here the fancy is the mere servant of the thought behind it. The lover
does not figure himself as the fly on the cheek of his mistress, or
the flower on her breast. There is no intrinsic prettiness in the
common earth or the common water-vessel, in the sole of a worn shoe,
or in a workaday gown.
It cannot be pretended that the Greek is so advanced in untaught
culture as some of his Italian brothers; in fact there are specimens
of the _Sonetto Grico_ which are so bald and prosaic that the "Latins"
might not be at much pains to learn them even were they sung at
noonday. The Titianesque glow which illuminates the plain materials
of Venetian song must not be looked for. What will be found
in Graeco-Calabrian poesy is a strong appearance of sincerity,
supplemented at times by an almost startling revelation of tender and
chivalrous feeling. To these Greek poets of Calabria love is another
name for self-sacrifice. "I marvel how so fair a face can have a heart
so tyrannous, in that thou bearest thyself so haughtily towards me,
while for thee I take no rest; and thou dost as thou wilt, because
I love thee--if needs be that I should pour out my blood with all my
heart for thee, I will do it." This is love which discerns in its own
depths the cause of its defeat. A reproach suggestive of Heine in
its mocking bitterness changes in less than a moment to a cry of
despairing entreaty--
I know you love me not, say what you may,
I'll not believe, no, no, my faithless one;
With all the rest I see you laugh and play,
'Tis only I, I only whom you shun.
Ah, could I follow where you lead the way:
The obstinate thoughts upon your traces run
Make me a feint of love, though you have none,
For I must think upon you night and day.
The scene is easily pictured: the bravery of words at meeting, all the
just displeasure of many a day bursting forth; then the cessation of
anger in the beloved presence and the final unconditional surrender. A
lighter mood succeeds, but love's royal clemency is still the text:
Say, little girl, what have I done to thee,
What have I done to thee that thou art dumb?
Oft wouldst thou seek me once, such friends were we,
But now thou goest away whene'er I come.
If thou hast missed in aught, why quick, confess it,
For thee this heart will all, yes all, forgive;
If miss be mine, contrive that I should guess it;
And soon the thing shall finish, as I live!
The dutiful lover rings all the changes on humble remonstrance:
I go where I may see thee all alone,
So I may kneel before thee on the ground,
And ask of thee how is it that unknown
Unto thy heart is every prick and wound?
Canst thou not see that e'en my breath is flown,
Thinking of thee while still the days go round?
If thou wouldst not that I should quickly die,
Love only me and bid the rest good-bye.
He might as well speak to the winds or to the stones, and he admits
as much. "Whensoever I pass I sing to make thee glad; if I do not come
for a few hours I send thee a greeting with my eyes. But thou dost act
the deaf and likewise the dumb: pity thou hast none for my tears."
If he fails to fulfil his prophecy of dying outright, at any rate he
falls into the old age of youth, which arrives as soon as the bank of
hope breaks:
Come night, come day, one only thought have I,
Which graven on my heart must ever stay;
Grey grows my hair and dismal age draws nigh,
Wilt thou not cease the tyrant's part to play?
Thou seem'st a very Turk for cruelty,
Of Barbary a very Turk I say;
I know not why thy love thou dost deny,
Or why with hate my love thou dost repay.
This may be compared with a song taken down from the mouth of a
peasant near Reggio, an amusing illustration of the kind of thing in
favour with Calabrian herdsmen:--
Angelical thou art and not terrene,
Who dost kings' wives excel in loveliness!
Thou art a pearl, or Grecian Helen, I ween,
For whom Troy town was brought to sore distress;
Thine are the locks which graced the Magdalene,
Lucrece of Rome did scarce thy worth possess:
If thou art pitiless to me, oh, my Queen,
No Christian thou, a Turk, and nothing less!
A glance at the daughter of Greek Calabria will throw some light on
the plaints of her devoted suitors. The name she bears = _Dihatera_,
brings directly to mind the Sanskrit _Duhita_; and the vocation of the
Graeco-Calabrian girl is often as purely pastoral as that of the Aryan
milkmaid who stood sponsor for so large a part of maidenhood in
Asia and in Europe. She is sent out into the hills to keep sheep; a
circumstance not ignored by the shepherd lad who sits in the shade and
trills on his treble reed. Ewe's milk is as much esteemed as in the
days of Theocritus; it forms the staple of the inevitable _ricotta_.
In the house the Greek damsel never has her hands idle. She knows how
to make the mysterious cakes and comfits, for which the stranger is
bound to have as large an appetite in Calabria as in the isles of
Greece. A light heart lightens her work, whatever it be. "You sit on
the doorstep and laugh as you wind the reels, then you go to the
loom, _e ecinda magna travudia travudia_" ("and sing those beautiful
songs"). So says the ill-starred poet, who discovers to his cost that
it is just this inexhaustible merriment that lends a sharp edge to
maiden cruelty. "I have loved you since you were a little thing, never
can you leave my heart; you bound me with a light chain; my mind
and your mind were one. Now,"--such is the melancholy outcome of it
all--"now you are a perfect little fox to me, while you will join in
any frolic with the others." The fair tyrant develops an originality
of thought which surprises her best friends: "Ever since you were
beloved, you have always an idea and an opinion!" It is beyond human
power to account for her caprices: "You are like a fay in the rainbow,
showing not one colour, but a thousand." When trouble comes to her as
it comes to all--when she has a slight experience of the pain she
is so ready to inflict--she does not meekly bow her head and suffer.
"Manamu," cries a girl who seems to have been neglected for some one
of higher stature. "Mother mine, I have got a little letter, and all
sorts of despair. _She_ is tall, and _I_ am little, and I have not the
power to tear her in pieces!"--as she has probably torn the sheet of
paper which brought the unwelcome intelligence. She goes on to say
that she will put up a vow in a chapel, so as to be enabled to do
some personal, but not clearly explained damage to the cause of her
misfortunes. There is nothing new under the sun; the word "anathema"
originally meant a votive offering: one of those execratory tablets,
deposited in the sacred places, by means of which the ancient Greeks
committed their enemies to the wrath of the Infernal Goddesses. Mr
Newton has shown that it was the gentler sex which availed itself, by
far the most earnestly, of the privilege. Most likely our Lady of Hate
in Brittany would have the same tale to tell. Impotence seeks strange
ways to compass its revenge.
In some extremities the lover has recourse, not indeed to anathemas,
but to irony. "I am not a reed," he protests, "that where you bend me
I should go; nor am I a leaf, that you should move me with a breath."
Then, after observing that poison has been poured on his fevered
vitals, he exclaims, "Give your love to others, and just see if they
will love you as I do!" One poet has arrived at the conclusion that
all the women of a particular street in Bova are hopelessly false:
"Did you ever see a shepherd wolf, or a fox minding chickens, or a pig
planting lettuces, or an ox, as sacristan, snuffing out tapers with
his horns? As soon will you find a woman of Cuveddi who keeps her
faith." Another begins his song with sympathy, but ends by uttering a
somewhat severe warning:
Alas, alas! my heart it bleeds to see
How now thou goest along disconsolate;
And in thy sorrow I no help can be--
My own poor heart is in a piteous state.
Come with sweet words--ah! come and doctor me,
And lift from off my heart this dolorous weight.
If thou come not, then none can pardon thee:
Go not to Rome for shrift; it is too late.
The Calabrian Greek has more than his share of the pangs of unrequited
love; that it is so he assures us with an iteration that must prove
convincing. Still, some balm is left in Gilead. Even at Bova there
are maidens who do not think it essential to their dignity to act the
_role_ of Eunica. The poorest herdsman, the humblest shepherd, has a
chance of getting listened to; a poor, bare chance perhaps, but one
which unlocks the door to as much of happiness as there is in the
world. At least the accepted lover in the mountains of Calabria would
be unwilling to admit that there exists a greater felicity than his.
If he goes without shoes, still "love is enough:"
Little I murmur against my load of woe--
Our love will never fail, nor yet decline;
For to behold thy form contents me so,
To see thee laugh with those red lips of thine.
Dost thou say not a word when past I go?
This of thy love for me is most sure sign;
Our love will no decline or failing know
Till in the sky the sun shall cease to shine.
Karro, the day-labourer (to whom we will give the credit of inventing
this song), would not, if he could, put one jot of his burden on
Filomena of the Red Lips. Provided she laughs, he is sufficiently
blest. It so happens that Filomena is his master's granddaughter;
hence, alas! the need of silence as the sign of love. The wealthy old
peasant has sworn that the child of his dead son shall never wed a
penniless lad, who might have starved last winter if he had not given
him work to do, out of sheer charity. Karro comes to a desperate
resolution: he will go down to Reggio and make his fortune. When he
thinks it over, he feels quite confident of success: other folks have
brought back lots of money to Bova out of the great world, and why
should not he? In the early morning he calls Filomena to bid her a
cheerful farewell:
Come hither! run! thy friend must go away;
Come with a kiss--the time is flying fast.
Sure am I thou thy word wilt not betray,
And for remembrance' sake my heart thou hast.
Weep not because I leave thee for a day--
Nay, do not weep, for it will soon be past;
And, I advise thee, heed not if they say,
"Journeys like this long years are wont to last."
Down at Reggio, Karro makes much poetry, and, were it not for his
defective education, one might think that he had been studying Byron:
If I am forced far from thine eyes to go,
Doubt not, ah! never doubt my constancy;
The very truth I tell, if thou wouldst know--
Distance makes stronger my fidelity.
On my sure faith how shouldst thou not rely?
How think through distance I can faithless grow?
Remember how I loved thee, and reply
If distance love like mine can overthrow.
The fact is that he has not found fortune-making quite so quick a
business as he had hoped. To the sun he says, when it rises, "O Sun!
thou that travellest from east to west, if thou shouldst see her whom
I love, greet her from me, and see if she shall laugh. If she asks how
I fare, tell her that many are my ills; if she asks not this of thee,
never can I be consoled." One day, in the market place, he meets a
friend of his, Toto Sgro, who has come from Bova with wine to sell.
Here is an opportunity of safely sending a _sonetto_ to the red-lipped
Filomena. The public letter-writer is resorted to. This functionary
gets out the stock of deep pink paper which is kept expressly in the
intention of enamoured clients, and says gravely "Proceed." "An imme
larga an' du lucchiu tu dicussu," begins Karro. "Pray use a tongue
known to Christians," interposes the scribe. Toto Sgro, who is
present, remarks in Greek that such insolence should be punished; but
Karro counsels peace, and racks his brains for a poem in the Calabrese
dialect. Most of the men of Bova can poetize in two languages. The
poem, which is produced after a moderate amount of labour, turns
chiefly on the idle talk of mischief-makers, who are sure to insinuate
that the absent are in the wrong. "The tongue of people is evil
speaking; it murmurs more than the water of the stream; it babbles
more than the water of the sea. But what ill can folks say of us if we
love each other? I love thee eternally. Love me, Filomena, and think
nothing about it."
Amame, Filomena, e nu' pensare!
Towards spring-time, Karro goes to Scilla to help in the sword-fish
taking; it is a bad year, and the venture does not succeed. He nearly
loses courage--fate seems so thoroughly against him. Just then he
hears a piece of news: at the _osteria_ there is an _Inglese_ who has
set his mind on the possession of a live wolf cub. "Mad, quite mad,
like all _Inglesi_," is the comment of the inhabitants of Scilla.
"Who ever heard of taking a live wolf?" Karro, as a mountaineer, sees
matters in a different light. Forthwith he has an interview with the
Englishman; then he vanishes from the scene for two months. "Poveru
giuvinetto," says the host at the inn, "he has been caught by an
old wolf instead of catching a young one!" At the end of the time,
however, Karro limps up to the door with an injured leg, and hardly
a rag left to cover him; but carrying on his back a sack holding two
wolf cubs, unhurt and tame as kittens. The gratified _Inglese_ gives a
bountiful reward; he is not the first of his race who has acted as the
_deus ex machina_ of a love-play on an Italian stage. Nothing remains
to be done but for Karro to hasten back to Bova. Yet a kind of
uneasiness mixes with his joy. What has Filomena been doing and
thinking all this while! He holds his heart in suspense at the sight
of her beauty:
In all the world fair women met my gaze,
But none I saw who could with thee compare;
I saw the dames whom most the Rhegians praise,
And by the thought of thee they seemed not fair.
When thou art dressed to take the morning air
The sun stands still in wonder and amaze;
If thou shouldst scorn thy love of other days,
I go a wanderer, I know not where.
The story ends well. Filomena proves as faithful as she is fair;
Karro's leg is quickly cured, and the old man gives his consent to the
marriage--nay more, feeble as he is now, he is glad to hand over the
whole management of the farm to his son-in-law. Thus the young couple
start in life with the three inestimable blessings which a Greek poet
reckons as representing the sum total of human prosperity: a full
granary, a dairy-house to make cheese in, and a fine pig.
In collections of Tuscan and Sicilian songs it is common to find a
goodly number placed under the heading "Delle loro bellezze." The
Greek songs of Calabria that exactly answer to this description
are few. A new Zeuxis might successfully paint an unseen Tuscan or
Sicilian girl--local Anacreons by the score would give him the needful
details: the colour of the hair and eyes, the height, complexion,
breadth of shoulders, smallness of waist; nor would they forget to
mention the nobility of pose and carriage, _il leggiadro portamento
altero_, which is the crowning gift of women south of the Alps. It can
be recognized at once that the poets of Sicily and Tuscany have not
merely a vague admiration for beauty in general; they have an innate
artistic perception of what goes to constitute the particular form
of beauty before their eyes. Poorer in words and ideas, the Greek
Calabrian hardly knows what to say of his beloved, except that she is
_dulce ridentem_, "sweetly-laughing," and that she has small red lips,
between which he is sure that she must carry honey--
To meli ferri s' ettunda hilucia ...
He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or dark. Fortunately
it is not impossible to fill in the blank spaces in the picture. The
old Greek stamp has left a deep impression at home and abroad. Where
there were Greeks there are still men and women whose features are
cut, not moulded, and who have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is
not less characteristic though it has been less discussed. A friend
of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of the Thousand, was struck
by the conformity of the standard of proportion to be observed in the
women of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule followed in
Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the subject is not taken in hand
by some one who has more time to give to it than a volunteer on the
march. I have said "men _or_ women," for it is a strange fact that the
heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to only one sex at a time. At
Athens and in Cyprus young men may be seen who would have done credit
to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst at Arles, in
Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women are easily first in the race.
The typical Graeco-Calabrian maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of
skin which no summer heats can stain, and the straight outline of a
statue. There is another pattern of beauty in Calabria: low forehead,
straight, strongly-marked eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe
figure, elastic step. Place beside the women of the last type a man
dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and the startled look of
a wild animal. The Greeks have many dark faces, and many ugly faces,
too; for that matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst the
possibilities of an Hellenic physiognomy. But the beautiful dark girl
and her lank-locked companion do not belong to them. Whom they do
belong to is an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians who
dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the Greeks as savages,
and docketed by the Romans, without rhyme or reason, as the
descendants of escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field
to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition of various
races has not led in any commensurate degree to a mixture of
blood. Each commune is a unit perpetually reformed out of the same
constituents. Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch
that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who was not closely
related to every other inhabitant of it.
The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical resemblance to
the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. It is fifty or sixty years since the
Hon. R. Keppel Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and
beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and Calimera. At Martano
they have a pretty song in praise of some incomparable maid:
My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see
How passing beautiful is she I love.
My Sun, that round and round the world dost move,
Hast thou seen any beautiful as she?
My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round,
One beautiful as she thou hast not found!
Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek worships the sun.
It is the only feature in nature to which he pays much heed. In common
with other forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the beautiful
periphrase for sunset, _o iglio vasileggui_ ([Greek: ho helios
basileuei]). Language, which is altogether a kind of poetry, has not
anything more profoundly poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the
"Sun up!" of the American Far West; but an intellectual Atlantic flows
between it and the Greek ascription of kingship, of heroship, to the
Day-giver at the end of his course--
Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht,
So stirbt ein Held! Anbetungswuerdig!
When we were young, were not our hearts stirred to their inmost depths
by this?
The love-songs of Bova include one composed by a young man who had the
ill-luck to get into prison. "Remember," he says, "the words I spoke
to thee when we were seated on the grass; for the love of Christ,
remember them, so as not to make my life a torment. Think not that I
shall stay in here for ever; already I have completed one day. But if
it should happen that thou art forgetful of my words, beyond a doubt
this prison awaits me!" The singer seems to wish it to be inferred
that his line of conduct in the given case will be such as to entitle
him to board and lodging at the expense of the state for the rest of
his days. In times still recent, prisoners at Bova could see and be
seen, and hear and be heard, through the bars. Thus the incarcerated
lover had not to wait long for an answer, which must have greatly
relieved his mind: "The words that thou didst say to me on the tender
grass, I remember them--I forget them not. I would not have thee
say them over again; but be sure I love thee. Night and day I go to
church, and of Christ I ask this grace: 'My Christ, make short the
hours--bring to me him whom I love!'"
The Greeks have a crafty proverb, "If they see me I laugh; but if not,
I rob and run." A Graeco-Italic word[1], _maheri_, or "poignard," has
been suggested as the origin of _Mafia_, the name of one of the two
great organisations for crime which poison the social atmosphere of
southern Italy. The way of looking upon an experience of the penalties
of the law, not as a retribution or a disgrace, but as a simple
mischance, still prevails in the provinces of the ex-kingdom of
Naples. "The prisons," says a Calabrian poet, "are made for honest
men." Yet the people of Calabria are rather to be charged with a
confusion of moral sense than with a completely debased morality. What
has been said of the modern Greek could with equal truth be said of
them, whether Greeks or otherwise: put them upon their point of honour
and they may be highly trusted. At a date when, in Sicily, no one
went unarmed, it was the habit in Calabria to leave doors and windows
unfastened during an absence of weeks or months; and it is still
remembered how, after the great earthquake of 1783, five Calabrians
who happened to be at Naples brought back to the treasury 200 ducats
(received by them out of the royal bounty) on learning, through
private sources, that their homesteads were safe. The sort of honesty
here involved is not so common as it might be, even under the best of
social conditions.
In that year of catastrophe--1783--it is more than possible that some
of the Greek-speaking communities were swallowed up, leaving no trace
behind. Calabria was the theatre of a series of awful transformation
scenes; heroism and depravity took strange forms, and men intent on
pillage were as ready to rush into the tottering buildings as men
intent on rescue. A horrid rejoicing kept pace with terror and
despair. In contrast to all this was the surprising calmness
with which in some cases the ordeal was faced. At Oppido, a place
originally Greek, a pretty young woman, aged nineteen years, was
immured for thirty hours, and shortly after her husband had extricated
her she became a mother. Dolomieu asked what had been her thoughts in
her living tomb; to which she simply answered, "I waited." The Prince
of Scilla and four thousand people were swept into the sea by a single
volcanic wave. Only the mountains stood firm. Bova, piled against the
rock like a child's card-city, suffered no harm, whilst the most solid
structures on the shore and in the plain were pitched about as ships
in a storm. Still, in the popular belief the whole mischief was brewed
deep down in the innermost heart of Aspromonte. It may be that
the theory grew out of the immemorial dread inspired by the Bitter
Mount--a dread which seems in a way prophetic of the dark shadow it
was fated to cast across the fair page of Italian redemption.
A thousand years ago every nook and cranny in the Calabrian mountains
had its Greek hermit. Now and then one of these anchorites descended
to the towns, and preached to flocks of penitents in the Greek idiom,
which was understood by all. Under Byzantine rule the people generally
adhered to the Greek rite; nor was it without the imposition of the
heavy hand of Rome that they were finally brought to renounce it. As
late as the sixteenth century the liturgies were performed in Greek
at Rossano, and perhaps much later in the hill-towns, where there
are women who still treasure up scraps of Greek prayers. Greek, in an
older sense than any attached to the ritual of the Eastern Church, is
the train of thought marked out in this line from a folk-song of Bova:
"O Juro pu en chi jerusia" ("The Lord who hath not age"). The Italian
imagines the Creator as an old man; witness, to take only one example,
the frescoes on the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. A Tuscan
proverb, which means no evil, though it would not very well bear
translating--"Lascia fare a Dio che e Santo Vecchio"--shows how
in this, as in other respects, Italian art is but the concrete
presentation of Italian popular sentiment. The grander idea of "a
Divine power which grows not old" seems very like an exotic in Italy.
Without yielding too much to the weakness of seeking analogies,
one other coincidence may be mentioned in passing. The Greek mother
soothes her crying child by telling him that "the wild doves drink at
the _holy sea_." This "ago Thalassia" recalls the [Greek: hals dia] of
the greatest folk-poet who ever lived. _Thalassia_ is now replaced
in ordinary conversation by the Italian _mare_; indeed, in Terra
d'Otranto it is currently supposed to be the proper name of a saint.
The next step would naturally lead to the establishment of a cult of
St Thalassia; and this may have been the kind of way in which were
established a good many of those cults that pass for evidences of
nature-worship.
The language of the Graeco-Calabrian songs, mixed though it is with
numberless Calabrese corruptions, is still far more Greek than the
actual spoken tongue. So it always happens; poetry, whether the
highest or the lowest, is the shrine in which the purer forms
of speech are preserved. The Greeks of Calabria are at present
bi-lingual, reminding one of Horace's "Canusini more bilinguis." It
is a comparatively new state of things. Henry Swinburne says that the
women he saw knew only Greek or "Albanese," as he calls it, which, he
adds, "they pronounce with great sweetness of accent." The advance
of Calabrese is attended by the decline of Greek, and a systematic
examination of the latter has not been undertaken a moment too soon.
The good work, begun by Domenico Comparetti and Giuseppe Morosi, is
being completed by professor Astorre Pellegrini, who has published one
volume of _Studi sui dialetti Greco-Calabro di Bova_, which will be
followed in due course by a second instalment. I am glad to be able
to record my own debt to this excellent and most courteous scholar.
He informs me that he hopes to finish his researches by a thorough
inspection of the stones and mural tablets in Calabrian graveyards.
The dead have elsewhere told so much about the living that the best
results are to be anticipated.
It need scarcely be said that the leavings of the past in the southern
extremity of Italy are not confined to the narrow space where a Greek
idiom is spoken. There is not even warrant for supposing them to lie
chiefly within that area. The talisman which the hunter or brigand
wears next to his heart, believing that it renders him invulnerable;
the bagpipe which calls the sheep in the hills, and which the wild
herds of swine follow docilely over the marshes; the faggot which the
youth throws upon his mother's threshold before he crosses it
after the day's toil; the kick, aimed against the house door, which
signifies the last summons of the debtor; the shout of "Barca!" raised
by boys who lie in wait to get the first glimpse of the returning
fishing fleet, expecting largess for the publication of the good
news; the chaff showered down by vine-dressers upon bashful maids
and country lads going home from market; the abuse of strangers who
venture into the vineyards at the vintage season--these are among the
things of the young world that may be sought in Calabria.
Other things there are to take the mind back to the time when the
coins the peasant turns up with his hoe were fresh from the mint at
Locri, and when the mildest of philosophies was first--
... dimly taught
In old Crotona;
wild flowers as sweet as those that made Persephone forsake the plain
of Enna; maidens as fair as the five beautiful virgins after whom
Zeuxis painted his _Helen_; grasshoppers as loudly chirping as
the "cricket" that saved the prize to Eunomus; and, high in the
transparent air, the stars at which Pythagoras gazed straining his
ears to catch their eternal harmonies.
[Footnote 1: In classical Greek, [Greek: machaira].]