Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Adelphius the Lawyer. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Letter XV.—To Adelphius the Lawyer2228
2228 σχολαστικὸς, or possibly “student,” but the title
of λογιστὴς, afterwards employed of the person to whom the letter is
addressed, rather suggests the profession of an “advocate,”
than the occupation of a scholar. | .
I write you this letter from the sacred Vanota, if I do not do the place
injustice by giving it its local title:—do it injustice, I say,
because in its name it shows no polish. At the same time the beauty of
the place, great as it is, is not conveyed by this Galatian epithet:
eyes are needed to interpret its beauty. For I, though I have before
this seen much, and that in many places, and have also observed many
things by means of verbal description in the accounts of old writers,
think both all I have seen, and all of which I have heard, of no
account in comparison with the loveliness that is to be found here.
Your Helicon is nothing: the Islands of the Blest are a fable: the
Sicyonian plain is a trifle: the accounts of the Peneus are another
case of poetic exaggeration—that river which they say by
overflowing with its rich current the banks which flank its course
makes for the Thessalians their far-famed Tempe. Why, what beauty is
there in any one of these places I have mentioned, such as Vanota can
show us of its own? For if one seeks for natural beauty in the place,
it needs none of the adornments of art: and if one considers what has
been done for it by artificial aid, there has been so much done, and
that so well, as might overcome even natural disadvantages. The gifts
bestowed upon the spot by Nature who beautifies the earth with
unstudied grace are such as these: below, the river Halys makes the
place fair to look upon with his banks, and gleams like a golden ribbon
through their deep purple, reddening his current with the soil he
washes down. Above, a mountain densely overgrown with wood stretches
with its long ridge, covered at all points with the foliage of oaks,
worthy of finding some Homer to sing its praises more than that Ithacan
Neritus, which the poet calls “far-seen with quivering leaves2229
2229 Cf.
Hom. Odyss. ix. 22. | .” But the natural growth of wood, as
it comes down the hill-side, meets at the foot the planting of
men’s husbandry. For forthwith vines, spread out over the slopes,
and swellings, and hollows at the mountain’s base, cover with
their colour, like a green mantle, all the lower ground: and the season
at this time even added to their beauty, displaying its grape-clusters
wonderful to behold. Indeed this caused me yet more surprise, that
while the neighbouring country shows fruit still unripe, one might here
enjoy the full clusters, and be sated with their perfection. Then, far
off, like a watch-fire from some great beacon, there shone before our
eyes the fair beauty of the buildings. On the left as we entered was
the chapel built for the martyrs, not yet complete in its structure,
but still lacking the roof, yet making a good show notwithstanding.
Straight before us in the way were the beauties of the house, where one
part is marked out from another by some delicate invention. There were
projecting towers, and preparations for banqueting among the wide and
high-arched rows of trees crowning the entrance before the gates2230
2230 The
text is clearly erroneous, and perhaps στεφανοῦσι
is the true reading: it seems clearer in construction
than στεφανοῦσαι
suggested by Caraccioli. | . Then about the buildings are the Phaeacian
gardens; rather, let not the beauties of Vanota be insulted by
comparison with those. Homer never saw “the apple with bright
fruit2231
2231 Cf.
Hom. Od. vii. 115. | ” as we have it here, approaching to
the hue of its own blossom in the exceeding brilliancy of its
colouring: he never saw the pear whiter than new-polished ivory. And
what can one say of the varieties of the peach, diverse and multiform,
yet blended and compounded out of different species? For just as with
those who paint “goat-stags,” and “centaurs,”
and the like, commingling things of different kind, and making
themselves wiser than Nature, so it is in the case of this fruit:
Nature, under the despotism of art, turns one to an almond,
another to
a walnut, yet another to a “Doracinus2232
2232 The
word seems otherwise unknown. It may be a Græcizing of the Latin
“duracinus,” for which cf. Plin. XV. xii.
11. | ,” mingled alike in name and in
flavour. And in all these the number of single trees is more noted than
their beauty; yet they display tasteful arrangement in their planting,
and that harmonious form of drawing—drawing, I call it, for the
marvel belongs rather to the painter’s art than to the
gardener’s. So readily does Nature fall in with the design of
those who arrange these devices, that it seems impossible to express
this by words. Who could find words worthily to describe the road under
the climbing vines, and the sweet shade of their cluster, and that
novel wall-structure where roses with their shoots, and vines with
their trailers, twist themselves together and make a fortification that
serves as a wall against a flank attack, and the pond at the summit of
this path, and the fish that are bred there? As regards all these, the
people who have charge of your Nobility’s house were ready to act
as our guides with a certain ingenuous kindliness, and pointed them out
to us, showing us each of the things you had taken pains about, as if
it were yourself to whom, by our means, they were showing courtesy.
There too, one of the lads, like a conjuror, showed us such a wonder as
one does not very often find in nature: for he went down to the deep
water and brought up at will such of the fish as he selected; and they
seemed no strangers to the fisherman’s touch, being tame and
submissive under the artist’s hands, like well-trained dogs. Then
they led me to a house as if to rest—a house, I call it, for such
the entrance betokened, but, when we came inside, it was not a house
but a portico which received us. The portico was raised up aloft to a
great height over a deep pool: the basement supporting the portico of
triangular shape, like a gateway leading to the delights within, was
washed by the water. Straight before us in the interior a sort of house
occupied the vertex of the triangle, with lofty roof, lit on all sides
by the sun’s rays, and decked with varied paintings; so that this
spot almost made us forget what had preceded it. The house attracted us
to itself; and again, the portico on the pool was a unique sight. For
the excellent fish would swim up from the depths to the surface,
leaping up into the very air like winged things, as though purposely
mocking us creatures of the dry land. For showing half their form and
tumbling through the air, they plunged once more into the depth.
Others, again, in shoals, following one another in order, were a sight
for unaccustomed eyes: while in another place one might see another
shoal packed in a cluster round a morsel of bread, pushed aside one by
another, and here one leaping up, there another diving downwards. But
even this we were made to forget by the grapes that were brought us in
baskets of twisted shoots, by the varied bounty of the season’s
fruit, the preparation for breakfast, the varied dainties, and savoury
dishes, and sweetmeats, and drinking of healths, and wine-cups. So now
since I was sated and inclined to sleep, I got a scribe posted beside
me, and sent to your Eloquence, as if it were a dream, this chattering
letter. But I hope to recount in full to yourself and your friends, not
with paper and ink, but with my own voice and tongue, the beauties of
your home.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|