“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.
“‘These lenes susurri,’ says Galiana, ‘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;[23] 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.
“‘This agrees with the description of Horace:—
“Nunc et latentis proditor intimo
Gratus puellæ risus ab angulo:
Pignusque dereptum lacertis,
Aut digito male pertinaci.”
“The laugh that from the corner flies,
The sportive fair one shall betray;
Then boldly snatch the joyful prize,
A ring or bracelet tear away:
While she, not too severely coy,
Struggling shall yield the willing toy.”
—Francis.
“‘In the last two lines, Horace gives us a picture of what happens at a house door. In Italy the young girls are permitted to step to the door for a moment, especially at the beginning of night. The lover is careful to pass and repass, that he may catch the instant in which he may remind his mistress of the hour of their nightly meetings, press her to observe her promise, and endeavour to obtain a token. The last is generally no more than a pretext that he may squeeze her hand, and take a ring from her finger which is weakly defended.’
“Thus far Galiana, and I have no difficulty in admitting that the two last lines explain what actually happens. The girl has played tricks with and laughed at her lover; and, being inclined to be reconciled, runs down to the house door. She quarrels with him only for the pleasure of making it up. Our vetturino, a lively young man, who has several times travelled over all Sicily, was not so weary by riding in the heat, but that he willingly touched the strings of his instrument nightly before many a window.”—Stolberg’s Travels, vol. iii. p. 447.
SICILIAN BANDITTI IN THE YEAR 1770.