Sicilian Carousel: Adventures on an Italian Island

5: Selinunte

DOWN THE CURVING roads we went now, among the almond groves, to where the little port of Empedocles lay glittering in the sun; but not quite. Just before we reach it the main coastal road turns sharply to the right and begins to head away towards the next objective — another cluster of temples in a different situation but set in a countryside which presents a complete contrast to the smiling hillsides we were just leaving. “In about half an hour,” said Deeds, “there will be a sudden deterioration of morale and general good humor. People will get out of sorts and start contradicting one another. Roberto says that it is always along this strip, and he thinks it is due to fatigue and a rather late lunch. I have only experienced it twice, but he says that it happens every time. Just watch.” In his own view this strange surge of bad humor was due to the sudden conviction that this journey was not only fatiguing but also morally indefensible; nobody should treat Agrigento like that. “We should have given it more time and more thought, not have been rushed through it like marauding Visigoths. Two weeks or two months — that is what it deserves. And then there is also the feeling of surfeit; people suddenly realize just how thick with old monuments of every period the island is. So they get grumpy.”

The astonishing thing is that it fell out exactly as stated. The Bishop’s wife crossed swords with the German girl about an open window which allowed the dust to blow in; the Count complained about the shag that Beddoes smoked. While the parent Microscopes said that the lavatories in the cafe had left much to be desired and they would report the matter to the responsible authorities. I was frankly hungry for something better than a box lunch and touched with the Deedsian misgivings about having been a traitor to Agrigento. This is the whole trouble about package travel. Yes, we were all put out, and in Mario’s driving mirror we looked like a gaggle of wattle-wagging turkeys. The shadow of the imperfectly grasped Agrigento lay over us.

Nor was the country through which we passed reassuring because of the heat and the dust streaming up from the lorries we passed. Then came a bundle of package-like valleys of green parched smallholdings and so at last came Selinunte. Mario nosed along the valley towards the sea headland upon which the main part stood, going so very slowly that I felt we were advancing almost on tiptoe. The bone structure of the assembled headlands and valleys was thus revealed to us in a slow sweep and we climbed until at last the bus came out in a clearing of olives over the hazy sea. What a contrast to Agrigento — all sunlit glitter and blueness. Selinunte is stuck in a crisscross of grubby sand dunes crammed into the mouth of a small mosquito-ridden river. A little hardy scrub was all that had managed to surface in these dunes. And yet it was becoming obvious that the array of temples and vestiges was far richer than Agrigento and their disposition more complex and intriguing than anything else we had seen in Sicily. To be hot and in a bad temper was no help, however, and I wondered whether the best time for such a visit would not be at sundown on a full moon. There was in fact a whole city of temples dotted about among the smashed altars and statues. It was as if some had got bored and just wandered off for a stroll among the surrounding dunes only to be silted up and fixed by the sand — this bilious looking tired sand. The landscape was made out of darkish felt. The sky hazed in. The river choked.

Needless to say, here the ascriptions are even more hazy than anywhere else — one could hardly spell out the identity of a single one of these monuments to a heroic past. They stood there in the echoless sand, glinting with mica, and they gave off a melancholy which was heart wrenching. It was worldless, out of time. Moreover, the heat was quite blistering and there was no scrap of wind to cool the traveler’s fevered brow. All this, one felt, was Roberto’s fault.… The party took refuge in the diffuse shade of a thorn tree, and Miss Lobb almost went so far as to “have words” with Mario because the Chianti was a bit too warm. So the prophetic words of Deeds came true. But worst of all was the fact that we were now conscious that if we were really going to appreciate this site properly and redeem our casual philistinism at Agrigento it would entail a circuit of about two miles in the burning dunes, the blackish dunes. We betook ourselves to lunch, sitting upon various bits of marble, edged together to stay in the shade. Then the Microscopes went to look at a broken column and were startled by the appearance of a huge snake — probably harmless. They behaved as if Roberto had personally put it there to frighten them.

I decided, however, to shake off both the apathy and the ill temper, and make use at once of Deeds’s knowledge of the site and of his stout binoculars. We climbed in the hot sunlight up to the nearest eminence, a sort of Acropolis from which the surrounding country could be studied through the glasses, thus obviating a long walk. I was still acting under advice, for on Selinunte Martine had been fairly explicit, and I had re-read her letters the night before.

Your first impression is one of great loneliness and melancholy; but in a moment you will reflect that what is really wrong with the site is the fact that the headland is not really high enough over the sea, and then that the blocked mouth of the river is responsible for the tatty vegetation and the flies which abound everywhere and the mosquitoes. But this said, the wretched place grows on you as you walk about it.

I came twice, the first time with the children and we wisely waited for evening before embarking on the shuffling scramble to reach the temples, which for want of any clear evidence of their origins are simply labeled by letters of the alphabet, or like the description of a sonnet sequence. Dust and lizards and prickly heat were our portion, and we were glad for straw hats and a thermos with something cold. But as the effort increased so their beauty grew on one, though they obstinately spoke of places much further away like Leptis Magna or Troy. Straggles of prickly pear made a kind of guiding channel. Huge lizards and in one temple a hole full of bats. I had looked them up carefully before setting out but what with the heat they all swam together in a glad haze of dun whiteness. The heat throbbed; it was the pulse of the ancient world still beating somewhere, far away. Even after dark they were still blazing, for we stayed until sunset on the little promontory just to watch the mithraic animal plunge hissing into the sea.

But I want to recount an incident which happened in a desolate place just near Temple E, which was one of the happier in style and feel. Nevertheless as we approached, from a kind of gully in the sand came the clank of chains and the whistling and straining of breath, as if a human being were wrestling with the Minotaur and having all his bones crushed with the embrace. We advanced, looking around with trepidation and saw that it was a fox caught in a steel trap. It was half-mad with pain and fright and its bloodshot eyes were almost bursting from their sockets. There in the wilderness this poor creature was wrestling with this steel instrument; and of course our approach only increased its terror, which multiplied the terror and dismay of the children. We would have given anything to free it, but at every approach it showed its fierce teeth and hissed at us. The heavy steel trap would not, by the look of it, yield to any but a savage peasant hand, or possibly even a steel bar. It would have been a mercy to dispatch it but we had nothing to hand. And though we examined the whole site there was no trace of a guardian to whom we might report this death struggle. It was a barbaric interlude and it shook us all; after that the heat and the oppressive silence which succeeded the groans of the poor red fox weighed a ton. And when we returned to the acropolis we were all on the point of tears with vexation and sadness.

I thought of this incident as with the help of the glasses I identified Temple E where it had occurred and admired its stylishness, though it looked from the west rather shorn of its head trimmings — the marble decorations and cornices which Deeds informed me had been carried off to grace the museum in Palermo — a most irritating habit this, common to the archaeologists of all nations.

But apart from cherished details made more vivid by the incidents recorded by Martine the glasses revealed along the sloping hills a really extravagant assemblage of ruins of all kinds, whole sections in tumbled heaps with only one column or two standing. A whole city of confused remains. Only juniper and thorn and lentisk managed to pierce the sand, and of course the prickly pear. We stood for a long time on the quiet grass-covered acropolis trying to feel our way into the meaning of this strangely anonymous town. On each side the crooked profiles of temples and columns stretched away, and there did not seem to be any central marshalling point, a central shrine or acropolis from which they radiated. There must of course have been a heart to the great city but unlike Agrigento we could not map it out by eye — even with probability. Selinunte … the very name is like a sigh. It is derived from the wild celery stalk which must once have been abundant here.

And as for the question of a center, the guides inform us that there was indeed a central acropolis, very strongly walled and containing many of the temples still extant today. It stood on a low hill as on a platform between two rivers at their point of confluence, and at the point where they flowed into the sea; moreover the mouth of each river formed a lip with a small but serviceable harbor sheltered in it. “When you know that you can at once feel the fresh air rush into the landscape,” said Deeds folding away his glasses carefully. We crept and crawled our way back to join those of the others who had remained obstinately in the shadow of the thorn tree. Having braved the heat we had a somewhat virtuous air as we poured out a little more warmish wine. Deeds, who had done his homework and was clearly quite at home here, proved to me that the archaeologists had really managed to plot out the growth of the town; but our feeling about the lack of a center had also been right in a way for Selinunte started in a scattered and spattered fashion with two main groups of religious buildings. To the west the Sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros — a resonant name indeed. Gradually with increasing prosperity and time the ring broadened and spread itself over the adjoining hills.

At this point Roberto pulled himself up and proposed a visit to the temple of Apollo, unique both for its size and for the fact that it took so long to build that fashions in building outran the architectural plans. “The total effect is a curious one, for the temple is archaic in style on the east side and classical on the west. It must have reached a height of a hundred feet or more and dominated the other temples, and indeed the whole surrounding area.” Alas! There is nothing left upright, and on the ground just this awkward medley of smashed stones and columns. The prospect of crawling about among them like flies had the effect of unmanning the party and Roberto got no takers for his gallant cultural proposal. I asked how far the Malophoros sanctuary was but was disappointed to discover that it was a full half hour’s walk to the west along a footpath leading from the Acropolis. Roberto made a vaguely thoughtful offer to accompany me there, but I rapidly made an excuse that I did not want to hold up the others in the heat; so we straggled in rather ungainly fashion back to the entrance to the ruins where Mario had backed the bus under a tall fig tree — an authentic piece of shade this. Here he had fallen asleep, and so deeply, that the noise of our arrival did not wake him. We formed an affectionate circle round him watching him sleep with admiration. It is rare to see someone so thoroughly asleep. He lay with a hand across his eyes, his mouth open, very slightly snoring. It was somehow most encouraging and invigorating. All our ill humor slipped from us as we watched this noble man taking his ease. But the noise of a foot upon gravel — or was it perhaps the sheer force of our gaze upon him? — did the trick at last and he woke, blushing deeply to be thus caught napping. Hazily we climbed aboard and implored him to turn on the fresh air vane of the bus. The seats were hot. We started up and nosed our way down into the boiling valley and along to the coast road.

I don’t think there was one of us who could have given a coherent account of the next hour’s voyaging — we all fell into a leaden sleep, only very vaguely conscious of the wheels of our little bus rubbing along the tarmac. There was sea, and a fresh wind, and there were scattered villages here and there when the horn did its warning work. But the transition in time to a vast and cavernous warehouse in Marsala happened like a piece of avant-garde film cutting. The jolt of stopping in the middle of a sort of impromptu cocktail party shocked us awake; for Mario had edged the whole bus into the echoing dark cave where, disposed along two vast trestle tables, was a constellation of beautiful bottles of every size and color. We were to take part in a promotional dégustation for the famous product of the island. Moreover, our hosts, the packers and shippers, were a large and beaming crowd of big-mustached elderly men who were obviously half-mad with impatience to get at the bottles and were only held back by the laws of etiquette from anticipating our arrival. A united huzza went up as we swung into the cool of the great barn. “My goodness the whole darn Mafia,” said Beddoes with approval; and out we all got to shake their hands and pat them on the back. A great show of amity followed and it was not long before we were beautifully implicated in studying the varying merits of the wines — one went up and down as if on a keyboard, testing and criticizing the wine. For each of us was to be offered a sample bottle as a present. Beddoes spared no effort to get to the bottom of the matter and played the half-filled sample tumblers as if they were a xylophone.

One of the directors of this partly promotional yet wholly life-enhancing operation, a whiskered gentleman who looked like the giant panda off duty, made a short emotionally charged speech to give us a brief historical glimpse of the Marsala trade. A speech which, said Beddoes, “was calculated to make the patriotic Briton’s blood course in his veins.” British shippers had played a great part in the production and development of Marsala. “Indeed,” said Beddoes, warming to his theme under the influence of his third sample, “it was not a case of trade following the flag but simply a question of the flag following the drink. In this matter we lead, I think.” He became knowledgeable now about Canary and Sack and Sherry, while Deeds waxed primly tedious about China tea and Indian. Altogether we were in a lather of British self-congratulation when a little patch of acrimony developed in another corner of the barn owing to some unfortunate reference to the Mafia by one of the Microscopes. It was rapidly smoothed over by politeness and Roberto explained somewhat plaintively. “It’s all adverse propaganda. The Mafia doesn’t exist. Long ago it was certainly a fact. But it was not unlike England. We sent one son to the Navy, one to the Army, one to the Church and one … to the Mafia.” If it was a joke — I think it was — it did not help to heal the breach. “Our Mafia today is called The Trade Unions,” said Beddoes forcefully. And so forth.

I said under my breath in demotic Greek: “I abjure the foul fiend!” an incantation which keeps one safe from all harm, and then turned my back on them all to watch the deep vibrant light sifting through a rainbow of sunbeams and striking their faces with marvelously liquid shadow, dense with oil and varnish. It was so very much an oil painting that I could almost smell it. But if the tragic truth must be told the wine tasting was not a great event for me, for my palate had long since been utterly corrupted by French wine; and even among the heavy artillery these Italian syrups did not measure up against, say, the muscat of Frontignan, to mention but one sweet wine which grew near me. I had had the same belly wearying experience in Cyprus with Commanderia, which has at least the literary merit of being brewed from the original Malvoisie grape. No. I artfully contrived to give my little case of complimentary samples to Miss Lobb, who being a Londoner had probably been brought up on port flip.

So gradually the party drew to an end and our hosts, bedewed with warm feeling and alcohol, found it hard to part from people so marvelously charming as we — if that is good English; profound expressions of brotherly love flew about, followed by an exchange of visiting cards and expressions of regard and esteem. Mario ground his teeth with impatience and mistrust at all this facile amiability. He was dying to hit the road again. One had forgotten that he sternly refused all drinks while on duty. Roberto had begun by being pious and ended up a tiny bit soaked.

At last we were away. As we swung about in the dusty streets, seeking out the coast road, Miss Lobb, borne upon a wave of sympathy and gratitude for the little gift I had made her, found her way to the back of the coach and engaged us in conversation on the subject (unexpectedly) of astrology. “I believe in the stars,” she said firmly. “If you believe in them they are usually right and never let you down.” Well, this was really arguable, but somehow whatever Miss Lobb did was all right with us. She had been following with the closest attention our vague arguments about landscapes and climates and atmospheres, and had wondered why the stars never figured in these deliberations. The reason was simple. Neither Deeds nor I were at all astrology prone; but we were open minded about it. I was sure that one could use the astrological map to “skry” just as one used a crystal ball. The quality of the vision … that was another matter. But what Miss Lobb now produced was a sort of little handbook of horoscopes devoted not to people but to places.

I was at a loss to know how one established the sign of a country or a town, but some of the findings which she now read out to us, working slowly round the heavens, were interesting and suggestive, though obviously highly empirical. Among the places which figured in our discussions about Greece and Greater Greece we found that Greece was Taurus while Sicily was in the sign of the Lion. Would this explain their likenesses and differences? There was not enough detail to judge. But there was many a surprise — such as finding that Germany, England, Japan, Israel, and Poland were all in the same sign, Aries. I was naturally more interested in the places which had played a part in my own life and it was interesting to see that Cyprus was in Taurus — so incidentally were Dublin, Palermo, Parma, Leipzig, Persia, Georgia and Asia Minor for good measure. Meanwhile Marseilles, Florence, Naples, Padua, and Birmingham were all clustered together in Aries. “Well I’m dashed if I know what to think,” said Deeds, which was a polite way of voicing his innate skepticism. But Miss Lobb was serious and her face had become round and school girlish. But “If you think it too silly I won’t go on,” she said; no, we assured her of our devoted attention and agnosticism and she plunged deeper into her little volume.

London, Melbourne, and San Francisco were all in the Twins; so were America, Belgium, Wales, and Lower Egypt.

The sign of Cancer harbored Holland, New Zealand, Rhodesia, Paraguay, and among the towns Amsterdam, Algiers, Venice, Berne, Constantinople, Genoa and New York.

In the Lion together with Sicily were France, all Italy, Northern Roumania, also Rome, Prague, Ravenna, Damascus, Chicago, Bombay, Bristol, Cremona.

We were so engrossed in this witchcraft that we got quite a start when Mario drew rein on the coast road in a clump of trees and Roberto sang out for Deeds. It was another little war cemetery.

Deeds obediently but reluctantly got down to do his little tour of inspection and he was instantly replaced by Beddoes and the German girl whose boy friend was also mad about astrology. Alas, we failed to find any trace of Dungeness in the manual, to the great disappointment of Beddoes who said that it must be an evilly aspected place with a swingeing Saturn in the ascendant. But there was plenty of other material at hand, and almost everyone was keen to know the ruling sign of his or her country or hometown. Switzerland, Brazil, and Turkey were Virgin, as were Virginia and Croatia. Of the capitals under the influence of Virgo were Jerusalem, Paris, Lyon, Heidelberg, Boston, Los Angeles, Babylon, and Baghdad!

This led to a good deal of argument and counterargument; the Microscopes were a bit irritated to be bracketed with heathen towns and asked me to register their skepticism translating from the French and to convey the same to Miss Lobb; but she simply pursed her lips and said, quite firmly, “Nevertheless!” Whatever that meant.

By the time Deeds came back to his seat we were deep in the penetralia of this strange system, without, however, being able to determine how the maps had been established — how could a town have a birthday? Nevertheless once stuck into this business the public interest forced us to continue. We forthwith announced: in the sign of the Balance, or the Scales in English, were grouped China, Tibet, Argentina, Upper Egypt, and Indochina; while the cities in the same sign numbered Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Vienna, Nottingham, and Amiens.

“I think the whole thing is highly questionable,” said the Bishop, forever guardian of the nation’s conscience. “It depends how much one can bring oneself to believe.” Beddoes shot back, “What about the Thirty-nine Articles?” and Deeds pacified the contestants by asking what their birth sign was. The Bishop had a troublesome Saturn and Beddoes a badly aspected Mars which explained, though it did not excuse, everything. Miss Lobb pursued her quietly triumphant way with the air of an early Christian with faith enough to snuff out the stake.

But of course like everyone else I was really only profoundly interested in my own sign — the wretched Fishes, with their coiling uncertainties and fugues; I obtained no comfort from the knowledge that Portugal and Normandy came under this sign, and also Nubia, the Sahara and Galicia; but it certainly did give me a start to find that among the towns which found themselves under the fishy influence were both Alexandria and Bournemouth — though what they had in common with Seville, Compostella, Ratisbon and Lancaster I could not tell.… Anyway, after this instructive session Miss Lobb put away her book and resumed her seat with a quiet air of self-approbation, as if she had done her duty. A discursive argument now broke out around the general theme of astrology. The Bishop was conciliatory and Beddoes was snarly. I think the remark about the Thirty-nine Articles had made a hole in the Bishop’s intellectual lining; at any rate he kept hull down and did not provoke any more grapeshot. On we went.

I dropped into a doze and saw the dunes of Selinunte rise in my memory with a sort of concentrated melancholy. What was interesting to notice was that at this point in the journey a new rhythm had set in, a rhythm based on fatigue and fresh air. We had started to catnap at all times of the day like bedouin. Quarter of an hour was enough to restore good humor and extinguish heat weariness. We had also learned to double up a bit — it is no use pretending that traveling in a bus does not gradually begin to feel cramping, restricting. Thus when we passed a series of caravans with highly decorated sideboards it was no surprise to see that the gypsies (for they were gypsies and not villagers) who occupied them, were blissfully asleep, lying anyhow on the jogging bottom, like a litter of puppies, dead to the world. It was the rhythm of the open road. And I think we poor tourists felt a subconscious tug towards the freedom and adventure of the Romany life — it contrasted so radically with our own. Some of the fatigue had leaked into my dream, and I yawned as I saw the string of temples rising one after another on the dunes. Then other vaguer thoughts and visions came to intrigue me. I remembered Martine writing, “Then somewhere before Trapani everything changes and becomes — not to exaggerate — ominous; or at least fraught with moment. It is the spirit of Erice advancing to meet you. I was terrified. I expected It to happen when I reached Erice. What? I don’t know what. Just It.”

A large bird smashed itself against our windshield and was dashed aside into death — leaving a large smear of blood on the glass. Mario swore and wiped the spot clean with a cloth.

The thump of the collision woke me up.

Birdsong: Erice

Rock-lavender full of small pious birds

On precipices torn from old sky,

Promiscuous as the goddess of the grove.

No wonder the wise men listening pondered why

If speech be an involuntary response to stress,

How about song then? Soft verbs, hard nouns

Confess the voices submission to desire.

A theology of insight going a-begging.

This Aphrodite heard but cared not,

The unstudied mating call of birds was one

With everything in the mind’s choir.

Someone sobbing at night or coughing to hide it.

The percussion of the sand-leopard’s concave roar

A vocabulary hanging lightly in viper’s fangs.

All this she knew, and more: that words

Releasing in the nerves their grand fatigue

Inject the counter poison of love’s alphabet.