[1] This is actually as the woman told it. I can only suggest there is some lacuna which my story-teller did not know how to fill up.

[2] We retain the unusual spelling “Dominiddio,” which is evidently intended to indicate the pronunciation of the Tuscan peasants.—Ed.

[3] Cf. The Story of The Three Sisters, in the Arabian Nights.

[4] “Let us go, young men; let us go, young men, to those nice cialde, O—— h.”

[5] Beppe’s home is more fully described in “A Tuscan Farmhouse,” p. 106.

[6] The house is small, but great its restfulness.

[7] Sacred to Jupiter, the patron of hospitality. Oh, thou, whoever thou mayst be, who, being an honest man, art perchance fleeing those worst of enemies, thy neighbours, enter this lonely house and rest.

[8]

Friends, enemies;
Relations, serpents;
Cousins, assassins;
Brothers, knives.

[9] For description of the marriage, see “A Wedding in the Pistoiese,” p. 87.

[10] That Capoliveri was a Roman town seems to be proved by the manuscript of a Goth, quoted as travelling in these parts in about 530 A.D. He tells us that the right name of the place is Caputliberum, for that Roman exiles deported to this village, without any difficulty, obtained the liberty of walking outside the walls within the jurisdiction of the city. It must have been a sort of Domicilio Coatto. The author of the manuscript is called by Ninci and Lambardi Celeteudo or Celteuso.

[11] The copper mines, mentioned by Aristotle, are no longer open. That they were worked by the Etruscans was first proved by Raffaello Foresi, when, in 1865, he made known the discovery of various bronze objects. These were found by one of the Foresi peasants near the entrance into the ancient copper mines above Portoferraio, together with a mould for receiving the melted bronze. Finely-worked bronze ornaments were found about the same time during an investigation made at Foresi’s suggestion, associated in a sepulchral cavern with skulls of Etruscans and Ligurians.

[12] “Storia dell’Isola dell’Elba.” Giuseppe Ninci. Portoferraio, 1815.

[13]

qui in portoferraio
nel MDCCCII fu recato pargoletto
vittore hugo
qui nacque la sua parola
che piÙ tardi lava di fuoco sacro
dovea correre le vene dei popoli
e forse tre anni
vissuti in quest’aura
cui danno atomi il ferro ed il mare
afforzando il corpo infermiccio di lui
serbavano
l’orgoglio dei suoi natali alla francia
la gloria del suo nome al secolo
all’umanita
un apostolo e un genio immortale.

[14]

napoleon the great
passing by this place in MDCCCXIV.
took in the neighbouring field a ploughshare
from the hands of a peasant
and himself tried to plough but
the oxen rebellious to those hands
which yet had guided europe
headlong
fled from the furrow.

[15]

napoleon I.
having conquered empires
reduced kings to vassalage
overcome by the snows of russia not by arms
in this hermitage
through him transformed into a palace
dwelt from the 23 august to the 14 September 1814
and having tempered afresh his immortal genius
on the 24 february 1815
hence darted forth to amaze anew the world
at his daring.

The municipality of marciana
with grateful and reverent soul
to so great a name
decreed the erection of this memorial
the 18 february 1863.

[16] 1897.

[17] The sky; formed, according to the ancient Finnic legend, by the wondrous smith Ilmarinen. In the “Song of the Sampo” he boasts that he has made it so well that “no hammer-marks remain; no pincer-marks are seen.”

[18] The reader will recognise the allusion to cantos xxi. and xxiv. of Dante’s “Inferno,” of which the former describes the lake of pitch in which the barrators were tortured, and the latter the terrible valley in which the sacrilegious Vanni Fucci and his like were tormented with serpents.

[19] Compare, for instance, the Italian and Latin versions of the following verse, taken from a short poem on a laurel branch which the poet, having plucked on the Appian Way, presented to a lady friend who bore the name of Daphne; and compare these again with the well-known Horatian ode “Integer VitÆ”:—

“Io son, Daphne, la tua greca sorella:
Che vergin bionda sul Peneo fuggia,
E verdeggiai pur ieri arbore snella

Per l’Appia Via.

En soror, Daphne, tua quÆ fugaci
Jam pede ad Peneum pudibunda adibam;
AppiÆ et nuper virui tenella

Margine laurus.

Integer vitÆ scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,

Fusce, pharetra.”

See also “Sei Odi Barbare di GiosuÉ Carducci, con la versione Latina di Amedeo Crivellucci.” Citta di Castello, 1885.

It must be observed in this connection that Carducci is very apt to change a descending Horatian rhythm into an ascending Italian one, beginning his line with an unaccented and rising to an accented syllable. In this way he obtains much movement and swing.

[20] Reprinted by permission, from “La Perseveranza” Milano, MartedÌ, 20 Marzo 1900.