It is one of the most thoroughgoing of the
classic tragedies, and was a favorite theme for the sculptors of
sarcophagi. Certainly, in the sarcophagi of the Vatican the
bas-reliefs are often scenes of battle, the rush of men and horses,
and the ground strewn with dead; and in others, a dying person seems
to be represented, with his friends weeping along the sides of the
sarcophagus; but often, too, the allusion to death, if it exists at
all, is very remote. The old Romans, like ourselves, had individual
ways of regarding the great change; according to their mood and faith,
they were hopeful or despairing. But death is death, think of it how
we will.
I think it was on a previous occasion that I went with my father,
afoot, along this same mighty Appian Way, beside which rise so many
rounded structures, vast as fortresses, containing the remains of the
dead of long ago, and culminating in the huge mass of the Cecilia
Metella tomb, with the mediseval battlements on its summit. And it was
on that walk that we met the calf of The Marble Faun: "A well-grown
calf," my father says in his notes, "who seemed frolicsome, shy, and
sociable all at the same time; for he capered and leaped to one side,
and shook his head, as I passed him, but soon came galloping behind
me, and again started aside when I looked round." How little I
suspected then (or the bull-calf either, for that matter) that he was
to frolic his way into literature, and go gambolling down the ages to
distract the anxious soul of the lover of Hilda! Another walk of ours
was to the huge, green mound of the Monte Testaccio; it was, at that
period, pierced by numerous cavities, in the dark coolness of which
stores of native wines were kept; and they were sold to customers at
the rude wooden tables in front of the excavations, in flasks shaped
like large drops of water, protected with plaited straw.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333