Legend has it that near this very spot Pythagoras used to come and dream. How strange to think that one can thus come in touch with two of the greatest men of antiquity—for within reach from here (a pilgrimage to be made from Syracuse) is the grave of Æschylus. Perhaps it was here that Pythagoras learned the secret of that music (for here both the sea-wind and the hill-wind can be heard in magic meeting) by which one day—as told in Iamblicus—he cured a young man of Taormina (Tauromenion) who had become mad as a wild beast, with love. Pythagoras, it is said, played an antique air upon his flute, and the madness went from the youth....
I shall never forget the journey across Sicily. I forget if I told you in my letter that it had been one of my dreams since youth to read the Homeric Hymns and Theocritus in Sicily—and it has been fulfilled: even to the unlikeliest, which was to read the great Hymn to Demeter at Enna itself. And that I did—in that wild and remote mountain-land. Enna is now called Castrogiovanni—but all else is unchanged—though the great temples to Demeter and Persephone are laid low. It was a wonderful mental experience to read that Hymn on the very spot where Demeter went seeking—torch in hand, and wind-blown blue peplos about her—her ravished daughter, the beautiful Pherephata or Persephone. However, I have already told you all about that—and the strange coincidence of the two white doves, (which Elizabeth witnessed at the moment I exclaimed) and about our wonderful sunset-arrival in Greek Tauromenion....
To the same friend he described our visit to Syracuse:
Casa Politi,
Strada Dionysio,
7th Feb.,:01.
... I must send you at least a brief line from Syracuse—that marvellous ‘Glory of Hellas’ where ancient Athens fell in ruin, alas, when Nicias lost here the whole army and navy and Demosthenes surrendered by the banks of the Anapus—the Syracuse of Theocritus you love so well—the Syracuse where Pindar heard some of his noblest odes sung, where Plato discoursed with his disciples of New Hellas, where (long before) the Argonauts had passed after hearing the Sirens singing by this fatal shore, and near where Ulysses derided Polyphemus—and where Æschylus lived so long and died.
It seems almost incredible when one is in the beautiful little Greek Theatre up on the rising ground behind modern Syracuse to believe that so many of the greatest plays of the greatest Greek tragedians (many unknown to us even by name) were given here under the direction of Æschylus himself. And now I must tell you of a piece of extraordinary good fortune. Yesterday turned out the superbest of this year—a real late Spring day, with the fields full of purple irises and asphodels and innumerable flowers, and the swallows swooping beneath the multitudes of flowering almonds. We spent an unforgettable day—first going to the Castle of ancient Euryalos—perhaps the most wonderful I have ever known. Then, in the evening, I heard that today a special choral performance was to be given in the beautiful hillside Greek Theatre in honour of the visit of Prince Tommaso (Duke of Genoa, the late King’s brother, and Admiral of the Fleet). Imagine our delight! And what a day it has been—the ancient Æschylean theatre crammed once more on all its tiers with thousands of Syracusans, so that not a spare seat was left—while three hundred young voices sang a version of one of the choral sections of “The Suppliants” of Æschylus—with it il Principe on a scarlet dais where once the tyrant Dionysius sat! Over head the deep blue sky, and beyond, the deep blue Ionian sea. It was all too wonderful....
While we were at Taormina the news came of the death of Queen Victoria. An impressive memorial service was arranged by Mr. Albert Stopford, an English resident there, and held in the English Chapel of Sta. Caterina.