Sicilian Carousel: Adventures on an Italian Island

7: Segesta

WE WERE ON the Palermo run at last, once we had arrived at sea level, but we hoped to take a running look at Segesta — a temple and a site hardly less important than the others, for it had had a full share in the ancient politics and the wars, even though its position lay some little way inland. Running along the sea roads the bays opened in all their blueness, and the gentle limestone valleys seemed awash with yellow wheat. But goodness it was hot. In half an hour of this we felt the full power of the sun’s rays on our roof and were glad of the air-cooling devices. Roberto had an unexpected sneezing fit, the first manifestation of which got into the loudspeaker and shook us all up. But he was happy, there was little to describe, and so he decided to sing us a couple of Sicilian folk songs, which he did in a remarkably true and robust tenor, while we tried to help him out with the choruses. Then with courtesy he asked us each to sing a song of our country, and this threw a sudden shyness over us all. Yet after much giggling and persuading Miss Lobb went forwards and sang to us of the “ Foggy Foggy Dew,” which was very warmly applauded. Surprisingly, the Japanese girl took her place at the microphone but it was only to sing “Parlez Moi d’Amour.” There were of course numerous abstentions due to shyness.

Deeds and I had not brought our music, nor had the Bishop. But Beddoes sang a surprisingly discreet version of Colonel Bogey, to the chorus of which we all joined in heartily, though the soldier next to me rather avoided my eye, doubtless because he remembered the ribald Eighth Army version of the song. But it was a stirring melody and had been made world famous by the film of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai, so nobody could feel left out. What with the heat and the dust, however, this song contest left us rather weary and it was very pleasant when, after curling through the soft green hills, we came into a smiling and verdant valley where the old temple stood — the general atmosphere of the place reminding one not of Mycenae this time but of gracious quiet Olympia. There were no strange atmospheres and no bogies; just the exceptional heat and the quiet density of the old temple sitting there with some of the assurance of a country town hall. Under a fine tree there was a rather handsome tavern where we were to have lunch, I surmised.

The smooth hills were densely thicketed with holm oak and laurel and rosemary and buzzing with crickets. A picturesque place with noble and romantic associations, though Deeds for the first time swore under his breath at people who could shove a motor road right through such a place, without blushing. They were simply unaware of anything but tourist gold. Just like the Greeks of today, and the Italians of yesterday. The only consolation is that it will all fall apart again and vanish into dust — for our civilization seems to be far less solid than those which have already vanished and left us these vestiges of lost greatness. But no, Deeds would not be consoled. “Here God is definitely mocked,” he asserted, “though thank God Segesta’s position is still fairly remote and one rarely finds it crowded — you can still sit in the theater and drowse, which is something.” It was true; ours was the only bus at the site, and by now, to my astonishment, we did not get on each other’s nerves any more. If we had not become friends we had become in a sense partners and ready to make allowances. Even the dentist’s lady had started to take a liking to Beddoes, who had swept her into a tango during a moment in the bar in Agrigento where a jukebox churned out jazz. As for the dentist he had assuaged a tiresome toothache which afflicted the child Microscope after he had been eating too many sweets. Even the Bishop had taken a hand at pontoon during a halt. Deeds had done tricks with string which fascinated and awed. In short we had all shaken down.

The place, the temple … how impossible it is to convey the charm of atmosphere in a travel folder or a photo. One is forced to fake, and the result is always a false emphasis. This place, even if there had been no temple, would have radiated a quiet magnetism and well being, just like an Aesculapium — like Cos or like Epidaurus. I have spent half a lifetime trying to analyze why and the only result has been to decide that it has something to do with fresh water and green in a limestone context. The sanatoria of the ancient world were chosen for their seclusion and the purity of their air; in our age also, but we tend to place too much emphasis on mountains, most likely because for so long the most popular of human diseases has been tuberculosis, which nowadays has all but disappeared. As for Segesta, so far nothing has been found to indicate that it was a spa unless the presence of sulphur springs near Calatafimi might hint at it. But of course here again nothing about it is known with any real exactitude — everything is conjecture. The people claimed to come from Troy though some say that they were Italians from the north; but the stamp of their Greekness remains, for their coinage bore a Greek legend, and their architects were Athenian in mind and scope. It did not need the learned dissertations of guidebooks to tell one about the splendor of this particular temple, standing there so quietly in the vale, wise as an elephant bearing the world on its back. What was missing was the context simply, the vanished town which would have put everything in its place and reduced the sense of strangeness and alienation which I must say I personally found exciting and stimulating. But the feeling of deep composure and calm was conveyed not only by the temple and theater but by the whole site. “I slept here in the grass once without a blanket,” said Deeds with a gesture, “by starlight in summer — what a huge display of jewels. And so silent.” The gesture he sketched suggested someone who just spontaneously sinks to the ground, rendered completely defenseless by the beauty and silence of the place. Of course he had seen it all years ago, hence his irritation. He must have intuited my thought for he said: “Twenty years I suppose; we came up on it by mule back from the direction of Calatafimi. It came to us valley by valley, in little sips so to speak, appearing and disappearing; each time from a different angle and a different light. At first it was tiny, like a little dice floodlit by the sun. Then it grew. Then at last you arrived with your tongue cleaving to your palate with thirst, but with the feeling of moral grandeur that must come to people who complete an arduous pilgrimage. It was unfenced then and one could put a sleeping bag down anywhere inside the temple. No road, you see, no access. Nowadays of course one drives straight up to these places by bus and so one doesn’t get the pleasure of the effort. One just rapes them.”

I think his little homily must have sounded a trifle reproachful for all at once everyone — almost everyone — decided to get out and walk a bit, as if to atone for our slack philistinism. However morally worthy, as a gesture it was somewhat intrepid because of the heat beating down from the rocks and vales. We were far from the sea here and the valley gathered up the rays of sunlight like a green burning glass. Nevertheless we set off in a straggle, I with Deeds and Roberto; we were shortly joined by the Count who was a good amateur botanist and was collecting wild flowers and leaves to press in the pages of his Goethe. “You know,” he said, “I am very skeptical about our attitude to the past; I don’t believe that we have a shadow of an inkling about how a Greek thought. Understanding and sympathy need a common culture. We are so different that it is idle to pretend that we can for a moment appreciate what their attitude to life and death was. I think we fake the whole thing. Fake reverence. Fake understanding. No, it has all disappeared once and for all; there is no way of recovering such a remote past by the imagination. Do I depress you?” We assured him stoutly that he did not, but in fact he did. I felt suddenly the fatigue of this journey growing upon me — the fatigue of the speed which did not give time to take in enough. A brilliant butterfly sat on a leaf. And suddenly I felt nothing but pure hate for the Carousel.

On we pressed in the heat, bursting with vainglory and good intentions, anxious to do the honest thing by one of the most beautiful ancient Greek theaters in existence when there came an encounter so hubris punishing as to be worthy of some ancient Greek fable. Beside the road, upon a large rock, sat a couple of very fragile and very ancient people, obviously a man and his wife, both older than the rock upon which they perched. The man was of an incomparable distinction from every point of view — worn but excellent light tweeds, gillie’s hat, light cape, solid gold-handled walking stick.… He looked like a senior Druid. His wife was beautiful and silver and fragile, a fitting mate for a man so handsome, whose silver hair spoke of age and serenity, but whose old eyes spoke of culture. Moreover, a lunch basket lay open between them, and she was in the act of reading from a book — it sounded like ancient Greek in an Erasmic pronunciation.

GRECIAN TEMPLE AT SEGESTA

Suddenly we appeared round the corner, puffing our noble way uphill; the reading stopped and the couple gazed at us with a quiet aristocratic commiseration. Scrutiny would be the word — a long cold scrutiny which made us aware of the extent to which we were disturbing the peace of this honeyed place. That wasn’t all. As we passed the old man spoke to his wife in a low clear voice, not intended to be overheard, and what he said was: “Poor tourist scum.” It was like machine gun fire — the whole front line wavered. We had been assailed in our poor fragile corporate identity; we had been weighed and found wanting. We could look at ourselves now with the proper misgiving and see just what a scruffy raggle-taggle mob we were, ill assorted and self-assertive with our little red bus. We felt suddenly terribly ashamed and full of self-pity. And here were these damned British aristocrats sniffing their contempt down their long aquiline supercilious noses. They had doubtless done things the right way — they had probably walked the last hundred miles, sleeping in the trees, and pausing from time to time to read select chunks of Theocritus or Thucydides to each other. Here they were, professionally appreciating the place in the right way while we, a sweaty mob of people of all shapes and sizes were galloping about destroying the peace.… I was furious, we were all furious, we were hopping mad. Hopping mad. Hopping.

Scum!

I did a fictive brood in the theater like everyone else, but this sudden criticism had disarmed and annihilated my composure. “How foolish to let a trifling barb like that irritate one.” (The theater was everything they said it was, and I resolved to come back and camp in the region next time.) But while only the English speakers of the party could have been winged by the small shot of the old British couple, there was a general sense of strain setting in, which could only have been due to travel fatigue. We were feeling the need to lie up in one place for a few days, to get everything into perspective. This much-needed breather would, of course, come when we reached Taormina. But as yet we had to face Palermo, and a long coastal stint as far as Messina before the end, the parting of the ways. But as if to taunt us for our lack of moral fiber the drive, when we once embarked on it, was one of the most beautiful yet, across rolling valleys, through sleeping-beauty towns. Skies domed and blue, fragile as pigeons’ eggs, liquid horizons where the sea clung to the edge of the world like a drop of silver. I dozed fitfully while the Microscopes had a bitter argument about something. The Count’s wife was really feeling pretty bad and there was some question as to whether they would not stay on a night or two in Palermo to recover enough strength for the rest of the journey. He had sat beside me in the theater and expressed some of his apprehension about his wife. “Since we lost our son she has been unable to regain an interest in life. She began to smoke and take tranquillizers and sleeping pills. She has ruined her health and now she can’t break the habit. I only came on this trip in the hope that it might shake her up and enable her to regain her health.”

Palazzi

Cool vegetation, ageless functionaries,

Winter palaces on slimy canals

Folded on green conservatories starred

With time, and all their forlorn flora,

Big dusty plants without their mistresses.

No challenge in the acres of dumb carpet

Sarcophagus of reception rooms groaning

“Who goes there?” You may well ask aloud.

Further on an artificial lake, forgetfulness.

Neither anguish nor joy obtains on it.

The ancient servant trembles as he points,

A corpse-propelling ninny with bad Parkinson’s

Croaks “Questa la casa” and the silence falls

Touched by the silver chime of clocks,

While soft as graphite or mauve plum pudding

The recent hills frame cities of the dead, Palermo.