For she once played on the Sicilian shores, THE SHIP OF HIERO. 66 'WE find an ample but interesting description, in Athenæus, of a magnificent and prodigious galley, that had twenty benches of rowers, contained an extraordinary number of persons, and was not only provided with dreadful means of assault, but with all that could delight the mind, and charm the sense. Baths of bronze and of Tauromenian marble, stables, a gymnasium, small gardens planted with various trees and watered by pipes, the twining vine and ivy, a library, and a sun-dial, were all in this galley. It had three decks; the second of which was inlaid with variegated mosaic work, containing the whole history of Homer's Iliad. Every necessary for repose by night, and banqueting by day, was provided with a regal luxury. "As much timber was brought from the forest of Ætna, for the building of this galley, as would have sufficed for sixty ordinary galleys. It had three masts; and, on the upper deck, it was fortified round with a wall, and eight towers like a citadel. Each of the towers contained four combatants, completely armed, and two archers. Within, the towers were provided with missiles and stones, and on the walls stood a kind of artillery-machine, invented by Archimedes, which threw stones of three hundred weight, and a lance twelve ells in length, to the distance of a stadium, or six hundred feet. 66 Each side of the wall was provided with sixty young men, well Round armed; and there were shooters even in the mast-cages.* the upper deck was an iron rim; where there were machines placed which would act immediately against an enemy's ship, hold it fast, and draw it to the galley. A tree sufficiently large for the main mast was long sought for in vain, till a hog driver found one in Brettia, or Bruttium, the present South Calabria. The lower deck could be pumped by a single man, with the aid of a machine which the Greeks called Koxov, the Latins Cochlea, and which we, after its inventor, name the screw of Archimedes. "When the wonderful work was completed, it was discovered that some of the havens of Hiero would not contain it, and that in others it was not safe. Hiero therefore sent the galley to King Ptolomy, (Ptolomæus Philadelphus, I suppose) as a present, to Alexandria. "You will pardon me this borrowed but abbreviated description, taken from Athenæus, as it appears to me, not only interesting in itself, but usefully instructive to those who have formed no just idea of the mechanics of the ancients. To such persons, I recommend the chapter in Athenæus which contains this description, as well as others, in which greater ships of the Ptolomies are described; and of one which was built by Ptolomæus Philopater, that, rowers and warriors included, could contain seven thousand men." Stolberg's Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and SERENADES IN SICILY AND NAPLES. "WE reached Alcamo in the evening; a well-built town, that contains above 8,000 inhabitants. It was built in the year 828, on the fruitful hill Bonifacio, by the Saracen Adalcamo, or Halcamo, who came from Africa; but its site was removed by the Emperor Frederick the Second to the plain in which it now stands. *Similar perhaps to the Top or Round-top, of a man of war.-Note by the Translator. "Alcamo boasts of having produced famous men; and, among others, Ciullo del Camo, who is generally called Vincentio di Alcamo. He was the contemporary of Frederick the Second, and is supposed by some to be the first who wrote poetry in the Italian language; at least, he was one of the first Italian poets. As it was Sunday, we were not surprised to see a great part of the inhabitants tumultuously crowding the streets, for this is a custom through all Italy. They begin on the Saturday evening, after the labour of the week is over, to collect in the market-places and streets. He who should be unacquainted with their manners, would imagine that some extraordinary event or insurrection had caused them to assemble; for they usually speak all together, with loud voices, rapid articulation, and animated gestures. In the midst of their violent contentions, you every moment expect they will seize each other by the throat, and are agreeably surprised to hear them end in a loud laugh. "Thus it was at Alcamo, where the streets seemed to be in an uproar till after midnight, when singing and music began; yet, as early as three in the morning, the people were going about, crying aloud the bread and meat, which they sold to the workmen that were preparing for their labour in the fields. The Sicilians, like the Italians, need but little sleep, and willingly part with that little for any diversion; hence the custom of serenading ever has and ever will prevail. Horace, in the ninth ode of his first book, speaks of the serenades of his days. He has been, hitherto, misinterpreted by some commentators; and, although the manners of the south of Italy and of Sicily might have pointed out what the poet intended to describe, yet I should probably still have misunderstood him, if a lucky accident had not informed me of the true meaning of the verse. "A volume of the Gazette Litteraire de l'Europe fell into my hands at Naples, a journal which gave extracts from the commentator, Abbate Galiani, a writer who died some years ago at Naples, a man of understanding, and famous for his numerous works. I do not believe that the whole of his commentary has yet been made public. have generally been understood as if the poet spoke of social friends who met together in the evening. But why should they speak in whispers? And why at an appointed hour? Is not the unexpected visit of a friend often the most pleasant? "Others came nearer to the meaning, without attaining it. They supposed the poet had spoken of two lovers conversing together. Let us hear our acute Neapolitan. 666 These lenes susurri,' says Galiani, are not the soft whispers of two lovers; they are serenades. To elucidate my meaning, it will be necessary for me to enlarge a little on the manners of the ancient Romans-manners which are still preserved in the lower parts of Italy, Spain, and the East. Love, that ever powerful, but ever hypocritical passion, suffers itself to be fettered and constrained as long as it can endure; but when it gathers sufficient strength, it breaks its chains and recovers its freedom. In Spain and Italy, where the climate will permit, the lover declares his passion in the street and at the windows. In France and Germany, where the winds are more rude, love is obliged to open the door, and tell his tale by the fire-side. In the country of Horace, the door was impassable and the house considered as sacred, particularly if it contained a young maiden that was marriageable. "But let us not deceive ourselves: neither Arab nor Turk first introduced the jealousy of the seraglio to Greece and Asia. The custom is much older; it is attached to the soil, it still exists in Italy, or rather did exist, till, at the end of the last century, French manners prevailed all over Italy. In the south, however, this ancient custom still remains in full force ;* the doors there are yet impassable to lovers. Watched, as they are in Turkey, the girls spend a great part of their time at the window, especially by night, listening to the songs which the lovers sing in a low voice, that they may not disturb the neighbourhood. The maiden conceals the light of her chamber, and her lover only knows that she is present by her soft whispers which he hears from the balcony. I have a thousand times witnessed the scenes which Horace describes. On a sudden the girl is silent, and returns no more answers to the discourse of her lover, who, being in the dark, knows not whether she still listens or is gone. He speaks again, again waits to hear, and at last receiving no reply, is persuaded that his beloved is retired to rest; or, that frightened by a noise in her mother's chamber, she has thrown herself under the bed-clothes and counterfeited sleep. "These accidents of fright are so common that the lover is not astonished if he be suddenly left in the middle of his nightly colloquy. Dejected, he puts his mandoline in its case, and is about to be gone, when, in an instant, his young mistress, who had retired to a corner of her chamber, gives a loud laugh to inform him that she still listens, and that she had only been sportively playing him a trick. Overjoyed, enraptured, he returns, and again begins his amorous endless tale. 666 This agrees with the description of Horace : "Nunc et latentis proditor intimo * «This extreme restraint originates in a mistrust of women, and the ill opinion which prevails of the sex. A prudent and chaste education honours and ennobles the fair, who are most injuriously debased by oriental confinement. The German and English women are the most virtuous of their sex. Nowhere are unmarried women so innocent, or the married so happy. Nowhere are wives so honoured, and so full of worth, as among the Germans and the English. Neither have our women that cold reserve which is frequently the lot of an Englishwoman. What Galiani says of the hypocrisy of love is in part explained by the text, and in part must be understood only of this passion in the South." |