{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61120/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61120","id":"gutenberg_61120","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61120","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","English poetry -- 20th century"],"text":"THE\n\nLEGEND OF MONTE DELLA SIBILLA\n\nOR \"LE PARADIS DE LA REINE SIBILLE\"\n\nCLIVE BELL\n\nPRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY\nLEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF\nAT THE HOGARTH PRESS\n\nHOGARTH HOUSE RICHMOND\n1923\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration 01]\n\n\n\n\n_TO POLLY FLINDERS_\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration 02]\n\n\n\n\nIf you will stop and take a drink\nWhere I did, late one afternoon\nIn April, you may see turn pink\nA patch of snow, which very soon\nYellows to green: it seems quite near;\nBut is, in fact, up Norcia way\nOr further: the effect's more queer\nThan beautiful: and should you say\nTo the _padrone_, Gian Mannino,\n\"What peak is that which looks so odd?\"\nHe'll answer, \"Monte Sibillino--\nBut they've bunged up the hole, thank God.\"\nHerr Hans Van Branbourg, 1310\nTo 1352 or so,--\n(A period, it seems, when men\nNot unlike us were apt to go\nFive hundred miles to get a thrill\nThey might have had for sitting still),--\nBranbourg, I say, having done the lakes\nAnd all the sights of La Toscana,\n(A jaunt which now a fortnight takes,\nLess then, because one skipped Verona,\n\"The Tomb\" not having found its owner[1]),\nCame southward by the Val Chiana;\nHeard of the Sybil, wouldn't wait,--no,\nNot a moment, at Spoleto,\nBut set off promptly for the cave.\nThe natives told him he was brave,--\nThinking him mad. Had not a monk,\nIl don Antonio Fumato,\nThere lost his wits, and, in a funk,\nFive bold young bucks from near Fossato,\nWho made the same attempt before,\nAt what they heard and what they saw,\n(Or was that later?) quaked like jelly,\nShaming the sires of Gabrielle?\nThey had seen things to make saints curse,--\nA gate that kept on clipping, clipping,\n(Much like a storm-door only worse,)\nAnd bound to give you such a nipping\nAs nips the persons, now and then,\nOf thoughtless, shunting, railway-men.\nThey had felt strange and ghastly winds,\nThey had heard strange and sudden noises,\nAnd what in Italy one finds\nMore rarely, gentle, whispering voices:\n'Twas woman's doing--never doubt it--\nA female influence ruled the air;\nAnd what the coarser said about it\nWas, that although when you got there\nThe place might seem an honest hovel,\nInside, they guessed, you'd find a brothel.\n\n\nIndeed it was a dangerous place.\nBut Germans are a stubborn race,\nNot to say obstinate, to boot\nAre fond of ladies: Herr Van Bran\nSwore that if anyone could do't\nHe, Hans Van Branbourg, was the man;\nPushed on to Norcia, then climbed higher,\nAnd with him went a single squire,\nCalled Pons--they say an Englishman,\nI hope he was, because I can\n(As you I think will soon agree)\nPronounce him brave as brave can be,\nYet sensible as Sancho Panza,\nWherewith I neatly close the stanza.\n\n\nThe knight pushed on, the squire behind,\nThey cared not tuppence for the wind,\nNor for the strange and sudden noises,\nNor the discreetly whispering voices,\nNor all those signs which long ago\nDid duty for a \"_numero_\".\nThey passed the gates of bronze. They came\nTo gates of crystal. Here they tapped.\nA lady-porter asked their name:\nWhereat the leader boldly rapped\nOut that which you've already heard, viz:--\n\"Herr Hans Van Branbourg, at your service.\"\nThe doors flew wide, and to their eyes\nRevealed the Sibyl's paradise.\n\n\nWhat saw they? Antoine de la Sale,\nWho wrote _Les quinze joies_ and all\n_Les cent nouvelles nouvelles_ as well,\nWhat I could not invent can tell;\nSeeing he came in 1420\nTo hold an inquest on the spot,\nAnd information got in plenty,--\nIndeed he clambered to the grot,\nBut only peeped inside the cavern--\nLater, however, at the tavern\nHe learnt the truth of what befell\nVan Branbourg in the Sybil's hell.\nThey saw a crowd of pretty girls--\nThese were the Sybil's seneschals--\nWho bade them change their dirty linen\nAnd rigged them out \"from the beginning\"\n(The text has _ab initio_);\nUp strike the fiddles; off they go\nThrough pretty rooms and splendid halls\nAnd gardens framed in sheltering walls,\nThe which were gay with flowers as well\nAs comely \"_dames et demoiselles_\".\nAccompanied by knights and squires\nIn divers fashionable attires,\nMuch as our Longchamps beauties go\nSurrounded by their _gigolos._\n\n\nGaping they go; until they see\n'La reine Sibylle', who from her throne\nWelcomed the strangers graciously,\nObserving she'd already known\nMen of their race, which (_vide Tacite_)\nWas honest, brave, but inficite,[2]\nAnd only that for want of practice\nIn social arts and crafts. The fact is\nShe much admired the Teuton physique,\n(I know some ladies can't abide it),\nSo murmured, \"You're my guests for this week:\nLater you'll tell me, when you've tried it,\nIf you'll become my _pensionnaires._\nI'll only add that we are here\nUntil the crack of doom. And then?\"\nQueried our cautious gentlemen.\n\n\n\"Then we shall see what we shall see,\"\nAnswered the lady airily,\nFobbing them off with such old saws\nAs rarely fail to elicit roars\nOf laughter from the House and Bar,\n--As \"Wait and see\" and \"Chi lo sa\";\nThen, sweetly added, \"If you please,\nHear our conditions, which are these.\nWho stays\nEight days\nMay go away the next.\nOn no pretext\nWho stays more\nMay or durst\nGo before\nThe thirty-first.\nWho yet stays more\nMust outstay\nBy one day\nHis fifteenth score.\nThen or never:\nFor who stays\nFurther days\nStays for ever,[3]\n\"Further,\" said she, \"if you will be\nMy guests, this Paradise of mine\nIs at your service; what you see\nOf fun and beauty, flowers and wine,\nIs for your pleasure: also choose\nAmongst my ladies who are free\n(There're always plenty on the loose)\nHer who most charms you. Certainly\nYou'll find them charming, trained to please,\nTo move with grace, converse with ease,\nWell bred, well dressed, well read, well meant,\nIn all ways sweetly competent:\"\nWhereat squire Pons was \"moult\" content,\nAnd, plucking at his master's jacket,\nSaid \"Sir, let's stay and stand the racket.\"\n\n\nThey said they'd stay a week; but when\nThe week was up they stayed again;\nIndeed \"_les plaisirs \u00e9taient tels_\"\nDays seemed like hours in that hell:\nSo says La Sale, who ought to know\nWhat pleasures seemed like years ago,\nSeeing he wrote \"_Les quinze joies\nDe Mariage_\", but then, _ma foi_,\nThey took their pleasures[4] otherwise\nThan husbands in that Paradise.\n\n\nIt was an abbey of Thel\u00e8me,\nCompounded with Arabian nights;\nWhere every sort of pretty game\nAnd wit and wine and all delights\nWere shared with pretty, clever girls,\nWho never dreamed of being pals;\nBut were what girls should always be,\nIn manner prim, in fancy free.\nThus was there hope for everyone,\nAll were fastidious, none was prude,\nWhich means flirtation's ticklish fun\nSupplanted dreary certitude.\nThere was the best of everything,\nOf wine, of song, and all the rest,\nThe best to drink, to kiss, to sing,\nAnd taste to know what is the best.\nA match for every mood: to please\nThe thoughtful, cloisters; polished halls\nFor dancers; vines and olive trees\nAnd rivers under ancient walls\nFlowing, for every heart's delight,--\nWere there: and there was rest by day and mirth by\nnight.\n\n\nMusic there was in every part;\nAnd almost always you could hear\nA song or septet by Mozart,\nAnd not a note of Meyerbeer.\nThere story-tellers had a way\nOf being neither dull nor long\nBut, like Voltaire or M\u00e9rim\u00e9e,\nWere rarely sweet and never strong.\nPerrons, parterres and green pelouses\nAbounded; walks of turf and sand;\nAnd restaurants like La P\u00e9rouse;\nFiddles and horns, and no Jazz Band.\nThere were no bounders and no bores,\nNo reach-me-downs, no general stores,\nNo clubs, no colonels, not a hearty\nGood fellow there to spoil a party,\nNo district-visitor or pastor,\nAnd not a sign of Lady Astor.\nThere were no 'cinemas', no groups\nOf shop boys, no colonial troops,\nNo one who hit straight from the shoulder,\nAnd not a season-ticket holder;\nThere was nor creditor nor debtor,\nThere was not in that pleasant land\nA soul who wished to make it better,\nAll were content to understand\nTheir happiness; nay, what is more,\nNo lady wanted for her lover\nThat kind of smutty, solemn bore,\nWho sick with genius, must uncover\nFor our souls' good his nasty sore:\nBelieve me there did not exist\nA single, small coprologist.\nSo simple-minded were the ladies\nIn that old-fashioned Sibyl's Hades.\n\n\nAlas I pure joy the fates forbid.\nAlas! that poet's not an ass\nWho has it that an _aliquid_\n_Amari_ rises in the glass\nAlmost invariably when we\nSuppose we've cheated destiny.\n\n\nVan Branbourg, and his British pup too,\nObserved that every Friday night,\nNo matter what they might be up to,\nThe partners of their dear delight\nSlipped off at twelve, upon the stroke,\nAnd left them puzzling out the joke,\nAs best they might, till Monday morning;\nWhen back their ladies came more kind,\nMore sweet, than ever. But this warning\nServed to unsettle Branbourg's mind.\nHe had a Lutheran soul. What malice,\nWhat mischief might they be about?\nHe tracked them to the Sybil's palace,\nAnd there it was he found them out.\nFrom Friday night to Monday morning,\nHe found these artless, frolick gadders,\nWho left their lovers without warning,\nLay with their queen, asleep like adders;\nNot in a peaceful girlish doze,\nBut serpentlike and comatose.[5]\n\"Pish,\" said the squire, \"here are no evils.\"\nThe German said, \"These girls are devils.\"\n\n\nHis northern soul was deeply stirred,\nHe said--\"My man, it's time we went,\"\nWhich good squire Pons thought quite absurd,\nAnd said so. \"Pons, d'you know we've spent\nHere,\" groaned his chief, \"three hundred days,\nAbounding in lascivious ways.\nPack up, and say 'good-bye' my man.\"\nThus spoke the Prussian Knight, Van Bran.\n\n\nThe ladies, as you may suppose,\nWere _navr\u00e9es, marrie\u00e9s_, quite upset.\nThey had to let them go because\nSuch was the formal bargain. Yet\nThey used all arts against all rules,\nAs Dido did. The gentlemen,\nMuch like Aen\u00e6as, looked like fools,\nAnd acting now as he did then,\nFirst sighed, then blustered, lastly went:\nSuch is the heroic temperament.\n\n\nThey went to see the Pope at Rome,\nTo beg his Holiness's pardon:\nAnd though the Suisse said \"Not at home\",\nThey caught him reading in the garden:\nDown furiously the book he slammed,\nAnd bellowed \"You may both be damned.\"\n\n\nIn this some hold the Pope was wrong,\nAnd went by much beyond his brief:\nBut that's no matter to my song,\nNor can it give us great relief\nThat Lettenhove speaks of a stick\nWhich played the old Tannh\u00e4user trick,\nBourgeoning into buds of pity,\nAfter our friends had left the city.\nThe Pope, he adds, was quite upset,\nAnd owned he'd spoken out of pet,\nWas strangely troubled for their fate,\nSent absolution--all too late:\nFor which, he thinks, the Pope must go\nTo join his victims down below.\nYou may conceive the lamentation\nOf our poor knight on this occasion.\nHe was, like others of his nation,\nA damned good fellow--only flabby--\nWho, on the slightest provocation,\nWould fight or weep. A speech so shabby\nAs this, he took to heart, because\nHis sense of sin increased his fears;\nSo, on the Milvian Bridge it was\nHis squire found him, bathed in tears,\nAnd gathered it was his intent\nTo jump from off that monument.\n\n\nAnd here our Pons was at his best;\nHe turned the scene from tears to laughter,\nSaid \"Cheer-i-o\" and all the rest\nThe case demanded: \"Since hereafter\nOur lot is bound to be unpleasant,\"\nSaid he \"let's think about the present;\nAnd, since the Pope declares us sinful,\nBy God, old bean, let's have a skinfull.\nSeeing Old Nick is whom we're meant for\nWe'll wait at least until we're sent for;\nI see no sort of use in hurry\nOr going half-way to meet worry.\nSince when we're dead we'll roast for lust\nLet's put off dying till we must;\nAnd since to roast foredoomed I am,\nWhy liefer for a sheep than lamb;\nBefore we reach the Christian hell,\nThere is another--you know well.\"\nThe knight deplored this shallow mood,\nBut let Pons lead him where he would.\n\n\n\"And they are gone: aye, ages long ago,\"\n(That is from Keats),--gone without absolution,\nOr penitence; nor have we means to know\nIf they regret their hasty resolution.\nOnly La Sale, the encomiast of marriage,\n(And author of a book still more surprising[6])\nIn 1420 coming in his carriage,\nOr on his mule, here archaeologizing\nIn Umbria, heard this curious story:\nAnd thinking that there might be more he,\nAs I have said, stopped at the tavern,\nAnd even climbed up to the cavern,\nWhereon, confirming what he'd heard,\nHe puzzled out this awful word--\nI give it as the author gave it--\n\"Her Hans Wanbranbourg (_sic_) _intravit_\":\nI give it just as it was writ\nHER HANS WANBRANBOURG\nINTRAVIT.\n\n\nYears later, Monsieur Gaston Paris,\nThat learned Frenchman, came this way.\nIt poured with rain. He could not tarry.\nHe gave the cave a single day.\nHe noticed that the mouth was blocked\nAnd asked the peasants 'why', who, shocked,\nInformed him how on summer nights\nThe Sybil and her horrid sprites\nCame out and danced their hellish jigs,\nAnd crushed the corn and scared the pigs.\nOn which unamiable narration\nThe _savant_ made this observation--\nThat they were very simple fools\nTo put their trust in masons' tools,\nSeeing that fiends, our souls' ill-wishers,\nSlip slyly through the smallest fissures.\nAnd, in effect, for all their skill,\nThe peasants owned, _they dance there still._\n\n\nO Hans Van Branbourg, I applaud\nYou first, remembering you're a lord;\nAnd next the not-to-be-forgot,\nYour squire and my compatriot,\nHim, Pons. For since we're far from sure\nIf Heaven will prove a sinecure,\nAnd seeing that it's quite uncertain\nWhat fate awaits beyond the curtain;\nSeeing you wanton down the years,\nWhile we are in the vale of tears,\nAnd even thus the odds are even\nOn waking up in Hell or Heaven,\nWhile many hold the odds not small\nAgainst our waking up at all;\nI can't but think that you were wise\nTo choose the Sibyl's paradise:\nI say it with a heavy heart,\nI think you chose the better part.\n\n\nFor in man's dire perplexity,\nThe old and best philosophy\nHolds that a woodcock in the shop is\nWell worth a couple in the coppice,\nAnd tons of may-be bliss don't measure\nOne ounce of certain, solid pleasure.\nWhence, once in Anchiale's city\nAristobulus found this witty\nInscription cut with wise intent,\nUpon an ancient monument,\n\u0395\u03a3\u0398\u0399\u0395 \u03a0\u0399\u039d\u0395 \u03a0\u0391\u0399\u0396\u0395, thus,\nBy good king Sardanapalus,\n\"Eat, drink, and--well, the rest's not worth a cuss.\"\n\n\nAnd so, my friends, though your adventure\nMay get from others only censure,\nThough curates and idealists\nMay call you 'rank materialists',\nAnd pompous atheistic prigs,\n'Blind-worms' and 'Hedonistic pigs';\nThough other men, and wise ones too,\nMay hold that there is more to do\nThan laugh and let the world go by\nSaying \"To-morrow we shall die\";\nYet in a matter so obscure\nWise men may differ to be sure.\nMyself, I never thought it clever\nTo fuss about the \"grand forever\",\nAnd cultivate a soul with care for\nThat vast but vague hereafter; wherefore\nIn my opinion, you did well\nTo live for love, though love is hell.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration 03]\n\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: In my opinion it is time\nTo legalise the cockney rhyme.]\n\n[Footnote 2:  Not 'facete'? No, because in modern times\nWe're prouder of our Latin than our rhymes.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Perhaps I ought to add a line\nTo say the verse is Sybilline;\nIt is portentously ill writ;\nScholars must make the best of it.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Both Sale and Andrea Baberino say\n\"_Le coeur ne saurait les imaginer_\".]\n\n[Footnote 5: Sale says they \"_\u00e0 la mani\u00e8re\nDe couleuvres et de serpents_\" were.]\n\n[Footnote 6: From this strange book well named '_La Salade_'","title":"The Legend of Monte della Sibilla; or, Le paradis de la reine Sibille","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":2680}