'Yea! sometimes on the instant all seems plain,
The simple sun could tell us, or the rain,

The world caught dreaming with a look of heaven

Seems on a sudden tip-toe to explain.'

'The Rubaiyat,' Le Gallienne's translation.

We came to Passignano from Chiusi, because we could not resist the beauty of Thrasymene. Most travellers in Italy only view it with passing admiration as they fly by in the express which takes them from Florence to Rome and Naples. It is to them merely another lovely incident in their journey through a landscape of surpassing beauty. Perchance they refer to their Baedekers, and find that it was the scene of Hannibal's great victory over Flaminius, and in a few minutes more their train is in Chiusi Junction, and the lake is lost behind the Umbrian hills. Others, who visit Perugia and Assisi, see more of its beauties, for when they leave the main line at Chiusi they have to make a semi-circular tour of the lake; and even from Terontola, the junction for Florence and Perugia, the line runs for miles along the lake-side, and crosses the actual site of Hannibal's battle-field.

Twice already, in the last month, we had traversed it, on the journey from Cortona to Perugia, and again on our way to Siena. Coming back we could no more resist it. Our intention had been to go straight from Chiusi to Assisi, but at Terontola the little philosopher put in a special plea for Thrasymene. He has a passion for lakes and rivers; no landscape is complete for him without them.

'Let us go down to Thrasymene,' he said. 'Not for the sake of Hannibal, but for the pleasure of its beauty. For I am sick of the petty wars of hill-towns, and am wearied for the moment of Etruscan tombs and Gothic palaces and churches. Let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear and the pomegranates bud forth!'

So we came to Thrasymene and Passignano, which is a mere handful of brown houses pushed into the water at the foot of a rocky hill. Passignano has a flavour of its own. To begin with, its inn is different from any other albergo in Italy. It has an old-fashioned kitchen with a cowl chimney and rows of shining brass saucepans, and it opens on to the village street, where the people sit to gossip while the evening meal is cooking. Its low cottage windows look over the wide expanse of water to towered Castiglione, and the wooded islands of Thrasymene; but it is built so close into the hillside at the back that you can stretch your hand from an upper room and pluck the creepers which pour in a green cascade over the rocks. It is extremely primitive: the menu consists of soup, macaroni, eggs, fresh fish from the lake, and very lean chickens, supplemented by rough country bread, plenty of honey and fresh fruit, and cheese if the proprietor has lately been to market in Perugia. Meat there is none, at any rate in August, nor tea. But the rooms are spotlessly clean, with snowy beds, dainty white valances, curtains edged with hand-made lace, and the finest of linen towels; the daughter of the buxom landlady is as charming as she is elegant, and the serving girl is a beautiful Murillo.

Passignano is full of beautiful women; they form two-thirds of the population of this little lake-side town. There are hardly any men in it except the old fishermen, and a few young lads, apprentices to bootmakers and saddlers. All the rest have drifted away to the towns, or have farms out in the paese. And the women, from the pretty French wife of Signor Arturo of the Albergo Balducci, with her freshly laundered cotton dresses, to the little bareheaded girls whose mothers call to them at night, bidding them bathe their dusty feet in the lake before they come to bed, are all lovely. They are noted for it.

The only other visitor in Passignano that August was a young Apollo—so beautifully dressed in pale grey riding-clothes that he looked as if he must have slipped out of a George Edwards musical comedy. He was, according to the landlady, a student from the University of Perugia, spending his vacation in Passignano because the girls were so beautiful! Oh, young Italy! How natural and unaffected you are! I loved to see him strolling down the village street with a lordly air of indifference, running the gauntlet of eyes as the pretty girls, linked in groups like bouquets of flowers, passed him demurely; while their mothers, sitting on the doorsteps of their cottages, scanned the handsome boy with kindly humour.

Everybody lives out of doors in Passignano. The women are always sitting outside their houses; and their children, half-naked in the summer heat, with halos of sunburned curls, pillow their heads on the rough cobbles of the hilly streets, and sleep after their play, as baby angels might sleep in paradise, tired out with singing. The stables and bakeries and workshops are open to the road, and above them the shabby brown houses clamber up the hillside to the Fortezza, which rears its shaggy head above the highest of their pagoda-like chimneys.

'If we stay here we shall prolong our lives for always,' cried the philosopher. 'Already I have forgotten the world!'

And he fell to imitating the song of the cicalas.

Indeed for us the world was standing still. We were caught in a mesh of beauty as in a summer daydream. The waves of Time seemed to retreat, leaving us like swimmers resting on a golden shore after struggle and turmoil. It might have been Lethe whose waters sang to the stones at our feet: for we forgot the world: its voice became a dream; we found ourselves content to watch the changing lights as the hours drifted away.

We ate our meals in the unfinished dining-room which Signor Balducci is building out over the lake—a mere shell of white plaster with empty doors and windows through which the little breezes strayed. There were flowers on the cloth beside our plates, and a great bowl of oleanders, geraniums and white asters on the table. We breakfasted off golden bread and honey, and the pretty waiting girl brought tuberoses with our coffee. Outside, the lake was a tender morning blue; its surface rippled to the cool breath of the mountains, and sparkled in the sunlight. The bent and twisted sticks of the fishermen cast fantastic reflections in the water, and were beautified, as all humble and work-a-day things are beautified in Italy, by the magic of the sun. Further out two men in a rickety sampan were hauling in their nets.

It was a scene of infinite romance. The towers of Castiglione shone like ivory out of the violet mists, and many of the hills which rose above them bore turreted towns upon their crests. Behind them we knew lay Siena, Montepulciano and Chiusi, and to the right Cortona and Arezzo, and there Perugia, and Assisi there. History swept down upon us too. Thrasymene and its vine-clad slopes are full of memories of Hannibal, the stormy petrel who beat his wings round Rome in vain. Nor does it lack for gentler associations, for Saint Francis of Assisi, who had been preaching in one of the lake-side towns, was inspired, according to the author of the Fioretti, to spend Lent on an island in its midst. Which he did, in solitary prayer and meditation, eating only the half of one small loaf of bread, 'from reverence for the fast of Christ the blessed one, Who fasted forty days and forty nights without partaking any earthly food; but in this manner, with that half a loaf, chased far the venom of vain glory from him.'

Towards the hour of sunset, when the shadowed hills grew blue and misty, and the lake was a mirror of pale gold, we walked along the reedy shore of Thrasymene. The wind rustled in the silken leaves of the maize, and made a music like far-off singing in the emerald reeds. We went down to the edge of the water where the gardens sloped to the lake, and we found flowers there and herbs—mint and thyme and rosemary that scented the air, and purple vetches and clover, and the beautiful cow-parsley whose blossoms float like butterflies over every hedge and waste ground. And there we waited while the sky glowed from gold to rose, and Thrasymene seemed aflame with Hannibal's desire for Rome.

We dined in our alfresco dining-room, and afterwards we walked again by the still waters, where the frogs were shrilling a chorus to the night-crickets, whose song in the grass is like the sound of a curb-chain being rubbed in the hand. Except for these the world was still. There were no lights along that mysterious country road except the stars, and rarely have I seen them brighter, even in Africa.

'In a town we never see such stars as these,' said the philosopher. We never do. The Milky Way stretched like a girdle across the heavens, and was reflected in the lake like a pale moon. We stayed to watch it, and to listen to the voices of the night.

A train glared out of the tunnel which pierces the hill below Passignano, and tore along in the darkness beside the road, lightening our starlit gloom for a moment before its meteoric tail of windows was swallowed up by the night. Then we saw a glow-worm in a hole below the wall, and because in Italy you are pleased with little things, we stopped to look at it, and watch it turn round like a light-house lamp, now glowing clear as a star, now an indistinguishable mass of phosphorescence. And all the time the sky was growing lighter, and the mountains darker in the east.

It was the moon.

Slowly it rose. The Milky Way grew pale in the lake, and one great star which had twinkled like a will-o'-the-wisp among the reeds went out. The light grew and gathered behind the hills, and at last the miracle of moonrise came to us as we waited in the scented darkness of Thrasymene's shore, as it came to the young world on the eve of its creation. First the rim, and then the pulsing globe leaping from the shadows. For a moment it hung upon the hillside while two fantastic stone-pines, a fraction of an inch in height, swayed within its circle like neophytes bowing before Diana; then it rose into the heavens,—a stately ship steering among the stars.

186

A miracle no less because our darkness has been lightened thus since the beginning of the world. There are so many miracles every day, if we but knew them,—the scent of flowers, the webs of spiders, the subtle fragrance of the earth, a wayside weed, and, most beautiful of all, the sunrise and the moon. For sunsets, though they may fill a grey world with rose and gold, and though they are always so magnificent that words are pallid pictures and artists' colours impotent, never have the beauty of the dawn. A sunset may turn our joy to melancholy, so tender is it, so pregnant with regret for the vanished day, so full of splendours. But we are always happy in the dawn. What of the night? It is over and gone. A new world lies at our feet; a new beauty fills our eyes; the breath of the morning in our nostrils is as a flower after rain. For in the dawn we step from the valley of the Shadow of Death on to the rosy mountains of Hope.

And because you are in Italy you have time to notice these miracles of every day, time to be happy, time to watch things grow. The hours do not matter, for to-morrow is as yesterday, and to-day is but a little minute in a garden. If it should rain the butterflies will only seek their shelter, the cicalas will be still, and the pores of the thirsty earth will open. To-morrow the sun will shine again. Or the day after that.

Nor is Passignano devoid of interest for the sightseer whose pleasure is not to be found in green pastures or beside still waters. Magione, with its three mediaeval castles and its memory of the Baglioni, is within a drive. Picturesque Castiglione del Lago is well worth a visit. There is the island of St. Francis, with its ruined convent, now the villeggiatura of an Italian nobleman, and its exquisite views of Montepulciano. And lastly, there is the battle-field where Hannibal, the 'furious youth' of Publius Cornelius Scipio, defeated Flaminius, the maker of roads.

We did not go to Magione, but we let two old men of Passignano row us to St. Francis' Island in their weather-beaten fishing-boats. In an acacia grove down by the water's edge they showed us the block of stone whose surface was worn into two hollows by the knees of St. Francis. So they would have us believe. 'Ma, È vero!' they exclaimed, as though they feared that we should doubt them; and we could but smile as they told us an old legend of the saint sailing miraculously across Thrasymene on his mantle, bearing a lighted candle in his hand, because the boatmen dared not put out in the tramontana which was lashing the waters to fury.

We almost missed seeing the battle-field of Hannibal, because we had left it to our last afternoon, and discovered too late that the only carriage in Passignano had been already commandeered.

It was Fortunato Rosso who came to our rescue, dear old man, with his dilapidated vehicle, which was no larger than a riksha, and so broken down that we expected the back to fall away every minute. The step did break when we tried to use it, and the axle bar was tied up with string. Fortunato Rosso is one of the characters of Passignano. He is a veteran of the Venti Settembre. As he has lost his teeth his conversation is difficult to follow, though he is an intelligent guide, having a soldier's eye for the possibilities of the land: his clothes are almost as dilapidated as his carriage, but he has a string of medal ribbons sewn across his scrupulously clean white waistcoat. The medals themselves are kept in a dirty scrap of paper in his pocket. He persisted in showing them to us before we started, and the villagers stood round and laughed indulgently. While he was eagerly pulling them out a cheap crucifix fell to the ground. A small boy picked it up, and pressed it to his lips as he handed it back, and Rosso himself gave it a resounding kiss before he put it into his pocket.

The spot where Hannibal entrapped the Roman army is as distinct as stage scenery. There is a semi-circle of mountains coming down to the lake at each end. Passignano clambers into the water at the southern extremity; and on the northern spur, close to the lake, there is an ancient road climbing between bluffs in an olive-garden. It is below the modern strada; and Fortunato Rosso, who takes a delight in propounding the stratagems of Hannibal, insists that Flaminius must have entered the plain through this pass. Half-way between the semi-circle and the lake is the hill of Tuoro, on which Hannibal's centre was conspicuously drawn up.

For the Punic general with his genius for guerilla warfare no better place for an ambuscade could be imagined. The Consul Flaminius lay at Arretium some miles to the north; and Hannibal, knowing his impetuous temper, determined to draw him out by laying waste the countryside from Cortona to Thrasymene under the very eyes of the Roman legions. As he anticipated, Flaminius, exasperated beyond endurance, left Arezzo and marched down to Thrasymene, paying no heed to the ill-omens which attended his setting forth. As a consequence his army had no enthusiasm. The name of Hannibal had turned even the heart of Rome to water, so that she spent her days in making sacrifices to the gods and consulting the oracles, but the fiery Flaminius would not allow his legions to make propitiation. 'Nay, rather,' said he with bitter sarcasm, 'let us lie before the walls of Arretium, for here is our country, here our household gods. Let Hannibal, slipping through our fingers, waste Italy through and through; and, ravaging and burning everything, let him arrive at the walls of Rome; nor let us move hence till the fathers shall have summoned Flaminius from Arretium, as they did Camillus of old from Veii.'[16]

Everything befell as Hannibal desired. Flaminius entered the pass. Seeing the Carthaginian army on the hill of Tuoro he advanced to give battle, not noticing the Baliares and light troops posted round the mountains, and unconscious of the fact that the Numidian cavalry had blocked his retreat by holding the pass when the last detachment of his army had come through. To add to his discomfiture a mist rose up from the lake and enveloped the lowlands, while the hills were in the sunlight above, and the enemy could watch for the preconcerted signal of attack.

It was given, and they poured down upon the Romans from all sides, taking them by surprise, and terrifying them by the unexpectedness of the assault. Even so the day might not have been lost if Flaminius had not fallen early in the engagement. After that it was a slaughter. There was no order. Each man fought for his own life, and when the legions attempted to escape by water, the only way left open to them, they were either drowned, or cut to pieces by the Carthaginian cavalry which followed them into the shallows. A band of some six thousand did indeed force their way to the hills, where they waited for the mist to rise, not being able to see how the day was going. And when at last the sun pierced through to the plain, and they could view the slaughter, they fled, taking their standards with them, only to fall prisoners on 'the following day when, Maharbal, who had followed them during the night with the whole body of cavalry, pledging his honour that he would let them depart with single garments if they would deliver up their arms, they surrendered themselves: which promise was kept by Hannibal with Punic fidelity, and he threw them all into chains' (Livy, xxii. 6).

So much for the battle, but the old tragedy that was enacted on these vine-clad plains has been forgotten. Many of the peasants have not even heard of the name of Hannibal, nor dream that where they gather their purple vintage to-day the earth was reddened once by Roman blood. The broad smooth road led us between ancient olives. White oxen yoked to clumsy wooden tumbrils rolled on and on towards us in a mist of sunlit dust; peasants in gay kerchiefs and skirts were working in the bearded corn which rose higher than their heads, so that we looked at them through a veil of stalks; a herd of black swine were nosing the yellow earth under the olives, with a little girl-child to keep them. And when we reached the summit of the pass above the turquoise lake we could see the road to Arezzo in a gap of the mountains, across a sea of vines. There was nothing to disturb the air of peace; the mediaeval towers and castles which crowned the hills were farms; and the Sanguinetto, whose sinister name is the one memento of that day of slaughter, was a river of stones agape for the September rains.

'Far other scene is Thrasymene now;
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en—
A little rill of scanty stream and bed—
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
And Sanguinetto tells you where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red.'

Childe Harold.