Autumn Lady: Naxos
Under spiteful skies go sailing on and on,
All canvas soaking and all iron rusty,
Frail as a gnat, but peerless in her sadness,
My poor ship christened by an ocean blackness,
Locked into cloud or planet-sharing night.
The primacy of longing she established.
They called her Autumn Lady, with two wide
Aegean eyes beneath the given name,
Sea-stressed, complete, a living wife.
She’ll sink at moorings like my life did once,
In a night of piercing squalls, go swaying down,
In an island without gulls, wells, walls,
In a time of need, all stations fading, fading.
She will lie there in the calm cathedrals
Of the blood’s sleep, not speaking of love,
Or the last graphic journeys of the mind.
Let tides drum on those unawakened flanks
Whom all the soft analysis of sleep will find.
Besaquino
No stars to guide. Death is that quiet cartouche,
A nun-besought preserve of praying time,
That like a great lion silence hunts,
At noon, at ease, and all because he must.
His scenery is so old, His sacred pawtouch cold.
A lupercal of girls remember him
In nights defunct from lack of sleep
Tossing on iron beds awaiting dawn …
He wound up his death each evening like a clock,
Walked to obscure cafes to criticize
The fires that blush upon the crown of Etna.
Leopardi in the ticking mind,
Lay unknown like an exiled king,
Printing his dreams among the olive glades
In orchards of discontent the fruitful word.
Acknowledgements
Though all the characters in this book are imaginary I would like to thank some real people who made it possible as well as pleasurable. M. Pages and Madame Robert of Nimes-Voyages for their itinerary and Simone Lestoquard for hunting up the illustrations in Paris.
LAWRENCE DURRELL
Index
A
Aedoni 146
Aeschylus 38, 94–95, 109, 148
Agrigento 69, 78, 131–193, 196–198, 201, 235, 254, 284
Akragas 93, 150
Alcibiades 37, 120
Alexandria 2, 12, 59, 86, 180, 211
Apollinaire, Guillaume 184
Arabs 73, 138
Aristotle 76, 176, 180
Athens 4, 66–68, 70, 73, 76, 78, 109, 116, 118, 120, 133, 135, 156, 160, 167, 174, 180, 265, 285
Augusta 58–59, 137
B
Baedeker 122
Baudelaire, Charles 184
Bellini, Vincenzo 28, 37
Besaquino 284, 290
Buddha 180, 217
Butler, Samuel 218
Byzantine empire 133, 138, 224, 256, 264
c
Caesar, Julius 278
Calabria 133
Calatafimi 236–237
Caltanissetta 148, 164
Cameirus 43
Capri 51, 273, 275–276
Caravaggio 115, 121–122
Carlentini 43
Carthaginians 93, 138
Castello Maniace 101
Catania 3, 6–7, 10–21, 23, 41, 59
Catanian Plain 42
Cavafy 184
Cefalu 257, 260–264
Centuripe 284
Chaos 158
Charles V, Emperor 216
Cicero 76, 173
Colonna, Vittoria della 148
Corfu 18, 65, 85–86, 100, 149, 262
Corinth 17, 73
Cos 236
Crete 3–4, 15, 17, 77, 81, 183
Cyprus 2–5, 9, 13, 17, 29, 47, 52, 63, 65, 131, 133, 136, 148, 152–153, 171, 206, 208, 258, 275
Dali, Salvador 178
Damarete 93
Delphi 181, 183, 215
Diocletian 142, 146
Diodorus Siculus 190
Dodecanese Islands 145
Douglas, Norman 275
E
Egadi Isles 216
Egypt 68, 73, 78, 192, 208, 210
Empedocles 60 175–176, 178, 180, 183, 286
Empedocles (port) 195
Enna 275
Epicurus 75, 176, 179
Epidaurus 236
Erice 212, 214 279
Eryx 215, 217, 219, 226
Etna 15–16, 34, 38, 41, 52, 76, 180, 183, 272, 274–275, 284, 286–287, 290
Euphemius 138
F
Famagusta 13
Favignana 216
G
Garibaldi, Giuseppe 37
Gela 69, 92, 94–95, 141, 148–150
Gelon 89, 92–95
Goethe 33, 44, 46, 103, 238
Guido, Margaret 190
H
Hadrian, Emperor 78–79, 146
Harrison, Jane 78, 107
Heraclius, Emperor 142
Hieron I 94
Himera 88, 93–94, 254, 264
Homer 74, 134
Hymettus 78, 160
I
Ionian Sea 16
Ithaca 218
K
Kazantzakis 180–181
Kephissos 75
Kesserling, Field Marshal 278
Kininmonth, Christopher 144
Kyrenia 30, 47
L
Lampedusa 103
Latomie 102, 114, 121, 279
Lawrence, D. H. 62, 103, 274–275
Lentini 43
Leopardi 184, 290
Leptis Magna 199
Levanzo 216
Lindos 85–86
Lucretius 176
Lycabettos 108
M
Mackenzie, Compton 275
Marettimo 218
Marsala 150, 204–205
Mentobello Beach 245
Messina 241, 255, 259, 261, 264–268, 284, 286
Midi 7, 111–112, 123, 136, 138, 187
Miller, Henry 63
Minoa 81
Mistral, Frédéric 184
Monreale 255
Monte Giuliano 216
Monte Pellegrino 251
Morgantina 146
Mycenae 192, 234
N
Naxos 2, 46, 269 280, 282, 289
O
Olympia 80, 234
Ortygia 85–86, 101
P
Paleocastrizza 86, 262, 273
Palermo 201, 208, 226, 233, 241–242, 244
Pantalica 284
Paphos 17, 133
Parparella 218
Paul, Saint 121, 180
Pausanias 69, 78–81, 258, 285
Persia 17, 208, 270
Piazza Armerina 141
Pindar 78, 94, 279
Pirandello, Luigi 103, 158–159
Plato 75, 176
Pliny 273, 280
Plymerion 120
Pompey 278
Porto Rafti 157
Psychico 157
Pythagoras 171
R
Rhodes 6, 15, 43, 63, 65, 73, 78, 86, 136, 145
Rimbaud, Arthur 184
Roger II, Count of Sicily 264
Rome 2, 6, 8–10, 51, 74, 103, 209, 222, 273, 279
Rosalie, Saint 249–254
Russell, Bertrand 176
S
Samos 85, 227
Seferis 181–182
Segesta 226, 233–242, 283
Selinunte 192, 195–212, 254
Sikelianos 180–184
Simeto river 43
Simonides 94
Smyrna 133
Socrates 76, 180
Spain 136–137
Sparta 120
Split 146
Suetonius 92
Swinburne, Algernon Charles 184
Syracuse 41, 57–59, 60 135, 138, 150, 216, 279, 283
T
Taormina 6, 153, 241, 259, 261, 264, 268–269, 270
Theocritus 241
Theron 93
Thucydides 116, 241
Timoleon 278
Tinos 80, 187, 227
Tivoli 146
Trapani 212, 215–220, 223, 225
Troy 191, 199, 236
Turkey 86, 137, 209
Tyndarus 275, 283
Tyrrhenian Sea 216
V
Verlaine, Paul 184
Villa Imperiale 141
W
William the Good 251, 255–256
X
Xante 16