Diversions In Sicily - free ebook by Henry Festing Jones

DIVERSIONS IN SICILY

by HENRY FESTING JONES Title illustration LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD 1920 First Published . . . 1909 Re-issued . . . 1920...

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TO ENRICO PAMPALONE

My dear Enrico , Your father and I, sitting one summer night on the terrace at Castellinaria watching the moon on the water, agreed that this book might be dedicated to you, although you have not yet put it into my power to ask your permission. “After all,” exclaimed your father, “what is existence?” And I was unable to give him a satisfactory reply. When Orlando and his Paladins were overcome at Roncisvalle through the treachery of Gano di Magonza, were they all slain? When “the Crusaders’ st

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NOTE

Chapters VIII–XI have been enlarged and re-written since August, 1903, when they appeared as A Festa on Mount Eryx in The Monthly Review . I have to thank Mr. John Murray for kindly giving me permission to reprint them here. A few sentences in Chapter XIII have been taken from a pamphlet I wrote and had printed for private circulation in 1904, entitled: Diary of a Journey through North Italy to Sicily in the spring of 1903 , undertaken for the purpose of leaving the MSS. of three books by Samue

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CHAPTER I—THE BRIGADIER AND THE LOTTERY

One wet Saturday evening in May I found myself at Castelvetrano consulting Angelo, the guide, about the weather. His opinion was that it would clear up during the night; I said that if it did we would go to Selinunte, and this confirmed his view; so, on the understanding that there was to be no rain, I appointed him padrone of the expedition and promised to acquiesce in all his arrangements. He was quite right; Sunday morning was brilliantly fine, and at about 8.30 we started. He began by show

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CHAPTER II—PEPPINO

The train passed through the tunnel under the headland on which stands the Albergo Belvedere, and steamed into the station of Castellinaria, a town that is not so marked on any map of Sicily. I had written to Carmelo to meet the train and drive me up, but he was not among the coachmen. I recognized his brother, and said to him— “Hullo! Rosario, where have you been all these years?” “Well, you see,” he replied, “I have been away. First there was the military service and then I had a disgrazia;

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CHAPTER III—THE PROFESSOR

The day before the festa there came a professor of pedagogy, and Peppino was not best pleased to see him because he knew him as a jettatore. I had supposed this word to mean a person with the evil eye who causes misfortunes to others, but he used it in the sense of one who causes misfortunes to himself or, at least, who is always in trouble—a man who is constitutionally unfortunate, the sort of man with whom Napoleon would have nothing to do. He will miss his train more often than not; if he h

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CHAPTER IV—THE WINE-SHIP

Peppino usually took half an hour off and came about noon to wherever I was sketching to fetch me to lunch. One morning as we walked along nearly every man we met smiled and said to him— “Buona festa, Peppino,” and he smiled and returned their salutes with the same words. He accounted for it by saying it was his onomastico—the day of the saint whose name he bears. “What?” said I, “is it S. Peppino and you never told me? I wish you many happy returns of the day. But it cannot be everybody’s o

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CHAPTER V—MICHELE AND THE PRINCESS OF BIZERTA

Educated Sicilians have not a high opinion of the marionettes; it is sometimes difficult to induce them to talk on the subject. They say the marionettes are for the lower orders and accuse them of being responsible for many of the quarrels we read about in the newspapers. The people become so fascinated by the glamour of the romance in which they live night after night that they imitate in private life the chivalrous behaviour of the warriors they see fighting in the little theatres, and thus

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CHAPTER VI—FERRAÙ AND ANGELICA

My next experience in a marionette theatre was at Trapani. I approached the subject with Mario, a coachman whom I have known since he was a boy. He was quite ready to help me, and told me there were two companies in the town, one of large puppets, about as high as my umbrella, the others, to which he went every evening, being rather smaller. Accordingly, at about a quarter to eight, he called for me, wrapped in his melodramatic cloak, and hurried me through the wet and windy streets to the te

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CHAPTER VII—THE DEATH OF BRADAMANTE

Before the last act, which concluded with the death of Angelica, a dwarf had appeared in front of the curtain (not a human dwarf, but a marionette dwarf) and recited the programme for the following day, stating that the performance would terminate with the death of Ferraù. Unfortunately I was not able to witness his end, but I went to the teatrino the evening after. We arrived early and began by inspecting the programme— Carlo ottiene piena vittoria contro Marsilio— Fuga di costui e presa di B

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CHAPTER VIII—MONTE SAN GIULIANO

Three or four miles inland from Trapani, at the north-west corner of Sicily, rises a precipitous solitary mountain, nearly 2500 feet high, with a town on the top. A motor bus makes a circuit of the mountain, taking one up to the town in about an hour. It proceeds inland, past the church of the Annunziata, the famous shrine of the Madonna di Trapani, and the ascent soon begins. As one looks back towards the sea, Trapani gradually assumes the form that gave it its Greek name of Drepanum, for it

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CHAPTER IX—THE MADONNA AND THE PERSONAGGI

In August, 1901, I was on the mountain and saw a procession representing Noah’s Ark and the Universal Deluge—one of those strange and picturesque cavalcades that were formerly more common than they are now. Usually, in other parts of Italy, the same story is repeated at the same season: in one place, always the Passion at Easter; in another, always the Nativity at Christmas, and so forth. On the mountain they have the procession at irregular intervals, after perhaps three or four years, and the

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CHAPTER X—THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE

On the morning of Sunday, 25th August, 1901, every one on Monte San Giuliano was up early and at 7.30 a brass band began to perambulate the town to announce that the festa had begun. At 8.30 the band entered the Matrice, and before Mass the sacred picture was unveiled, the band saluting it with a burst of music. Much may be done in music by allusion and suggestion. The service concluded with an extremely graceful movement in six-eight time, that drove the Madonna out of the mind of at least o

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CHAPTER XI—THE RETURN

The procession of the grain closed the harvest home and in the evening of the same day began the proceedings relating to the Return of the Madonna to Custonaci. At 8 p.m. another procession started. First came the band to clear the way, then a man beating a drum; this is a feature of Sicilian processions and is said to date from the time when the Saracens had possession of the island; it continues as long as the procession lasts, which may be for hours, and produces an unexpected effect. Ther

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CHAPTER XII—FAITH AND SUPERSTITION

The brigadier and the corporal both sent illustrated postcards to me from Selinunte and I sent them postcards in return, but the corporal unaccountably desisted after being transferred to another station; for instead of returning home in about a month, as he had intended, he signed on for a further term of service. Perhaps on his change of address one of my cards may have gone wrong in the post, and he may have considered that I was neglecting him. I have never seen him again. The next time I

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CHAPTER XIII—THE PRODIGAL SON AND THE ARTS

Calatafimi is a town of 10,000 inhabitants about twenty miles inland from Trapani. A slight eminence to the west of the town, 1115 feet above the sea, crowned by the ruins of a castle of the Saracens (hence the name of the place, Cal’ at Eufimi), commands an extensive and beautiful view which includes three monuments—first, the famous Greek temple of Segesta; secondly, the theatre and the remains of the city above it; thirdly, the obelisk commemorating Garibaldi’s first victory over the Neapoli

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CHAPTER XIV—SAMSON

The next time I was in Palermo, Turiddu, the conduttore, who used to take me about the town, had returned after being for a year in Naples. He was employed at another hotel, but that did not prevent his making an appointment to take me to the marionettes. My experiences at Trapani had removed all sense of danger, and I now felt as safe in the theatre as in the streets of London. Statistics may or may not support the view, but I am inclined to attribute the general impression that Sicily is mo

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CHAPTER XV—THE CONVERSION OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE

Being alone one autumn evening in Palermo, about a year and a half after I had seen Samson, I returned to the teatrino and found it open. On asking the young man at the door whether the performance had begun and whether there was room for me, he pulled aside the curtain at the entrance and disclosed the stage full of fighting paladins and the auditorium half empty. I paid three soldi and took a seat. After the first act, I congratulated the young man at the door on the performance and told hi

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CHAPTER XVI—A GREAT ACTOR

Last time I was at Castellinaria there came to the town for a week a company of Sicilian actors. I was afraid the dialect would be beyond me, but Peppino assured me that it would matter very little if it were, because I should understand the gestures, and he promised to come with me and give me any explanation I wanted. So we went to the theatre the first evening. He was right about the gestures which were wonderfully expressive and, as for the dialect, it may have been because he interpreted

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CHAPTER XVII—SUPPER WITH THE PLAYERS

Next evening the play was Feudalismo . Giovanni does not return from prison; he is a shepherd and is made to marry a girl without being told of the relations that had subsisted between her and his lord. He and his wife fall in love with one another, he discovers the deception, kills his lord and carries his wife off on his shoulders to live happily with him among his sheep in the mountains. We went round to his dressing-room after the performance to congratulate him; when he began to bring the

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CHAPTER XVIII—A YOUNG CRITIC

One day after rehearsal I had an appointment with a young man whose acquaintance I had made the previous evening behind the scenes. He was sitting on a packing-case, exchanging compliments with the head fireman, and inquired whether I was looking for anything; finding I wanted a seat he took me under his protection, scoured the theatre for a chair, and put it for me in a corner with a view of the stage. There was only room for one chair, so he sat on my knee and put his arm round my neck to ke

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CHAPTER XIX—BRANCACCIA

After the players were gone I resumed my normal habits. One morning, as Peppino and I were returning to colazione he asked me whether I had seen the procession down on the shore. “Of course I saw it, but I did not know what it was all about.” “That,” said he, “was the bishop; he go to bless the sea and pray God to send the tunnies. Every spring shall be coming always the tunnies, but if to don’t bless the sea, then to be coming few tunnies; if to bless the sea then to be coming plenty many tun

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