Cchiu bello, ohinè,
’O sole mio
Sta nfronte a te!”
And what sufficient word can be said of the lovely “A Serenata d’ ’e Rrose”? It is impossible not to rejoice with these soulful tenors in that
“The glinting moonbeams look like silver pieces
Flung down among the roses by the breezes,”—
or to respond to the plaintive intensity of the appealing cry:—
“Oj rrose meje! Si dorme chesta fata
Scetatela cu chesta serenata!”
Like old Ulysses, the swift little felucca soon stops its ears to these fascinating distractions, and bears Luigi and me off into the purple darkness. The prison-capped rock of Nisida drops astern with all its august memories of Brutus and his devoted Portia, and its repugnant ones of Queen Joanna, the very bad, and King Robert, the very good. In the moonlit path the distant cliffs of Procida, isle of romance and beauty, loom afar, but we distinguish no faintest echo of the bewildering tarantella music that is danced there in its perfection. What a different spectacle its observers are enjoying from the stale perfunctory performances of the Sorrento hotels, which the tourists see at two dollars a head. For the tarantella, well done, is the intensest and most expressive of dances. All the emotions of the lover and his coquettish sweetheart are aptly portrayed—the advances, rebuffs, encouragements, slights, and final triumph. The Procida dance is a revelation when rendered out of sheer delight—con amore, as the Italians say.