Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimming
Onward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
The gondolier in Venice is as fine to look at as his gondola; he has colour, too, in the ruddy dye of his face, the infinite variety of his amber shirts and blue trousers and scarlet sashes; and if you really know him, he is one of the most charming of people.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
‘Row, Zarzi!’
The gondolier rowed with increased vigour; the rowlock now and then creaked under his effort. The Fondaco dei Truchi melted away like worn and marvellously discoloured ivory, like the surviving portico of a ruined mosque. The palace of the Cornaro and the palace of the Pesaro passed them, like two opaque giants blackened by time as by the smoke of a conflagration. The Ca’ d’Oro passed them like a divine play of stone and air; then the Rialto showed its ample back already noisy with popular life, laden with its encumbered shops, filled, ... like an enormous cornucopia pouring on the shore all around it an abundance of the fruits of the earth.
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.
THE CHARM OF THE GONDOLA
In the palmy days of the gondolier (for he bore the traveller all the way from Mestre to Venice) there was real poetry in the journey, as tower, and campanile, and dome gathered from the golden haze, across the narrowing expanse of water.... It was a vehicle no less pleasant for the longer excursions on the lagoon. Shaded by its awning, or sheltering under its black covering, what could be more pleasant than to slide over the water to the sandy Lido for a refreshing dip in the Adriatic, or seek the Cathedral of Murano, or, yet further afield, pass by lonely islets to visit Torcello and its oldest church? Venice the silent and the gondola are exactly suited. There is no more restful mode of locomotion; no vibration, no rattle, no clatter, nothing but the rhythmic wash of the water beneath the oar, so curiously handled, or the gentle ripple as it slides past the sides; no louder sound except now and again the gondolier’s strange cry on approaching a corner to warn those beyond it what direction to take. But the gondolier has another advantage. Venice is more than a few important canals, something more than ornate palaces or stately churches. The waterways among its three score and ten islands ramify in all directions, and some of the most picturesque, though often dilapidated, parts of the city are only properly accessible from the smaller canals.... Here some ornate balcony overhangs; then a little canal unexpectedly opens, perhaps with its central well. Here a quaintly designed bridge carries from islet to islet those narrow alleys, means of communication yet more intricate than the canals themselves. Sometimes they reveal unexpected phases of domestic life, such as a group of youngsters indulging in a bath from their own doorstep, now disporting themselves in the warm water, now basking in the sunshine on the stone slabs. Venetian boys take to the water almost as naturally as ducks; and the baby, tied for safety to the door-post with a string, solemnly contemplates the sport. Venice is at its best in the summer-time.... A refreshing breeze from the Adriatic often tempers even the midday heat, and it is a city which needs sunshine almost as much as London itself.