ROME
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he blue sky of Italy; the blue sky of Rome. Sunlight pouring whiteand clear from the wide-stretched sky. Sunlight sliding softly overwhite marble, lying in jasmine circles before cool porticoes,striking sharply upon roofs and domes, recoiling before straightfaçades of grey granite, foiled and beaten by the deep halls oftemples. Sunlight on tiles and tufa, sunlight on basalt and porphyry. The skystripes Rome with sun and shadow; strips of yellow, strips of blue,pepper-dots of purple and orange. It whip-lashes the four greathorses of gilded bronze, harnessed to the bronze _quadriga_ on theArch of Nero, and they trot slowly forward without moving. Thehorses tread the marbles of Rome beneath their feet. Their goldenflanks quiver in the sunlight. One foot paws the air. A step, andthey will lance into the air, Pegasus-like, stepping the wind. Butthey do not take the step. They wait--poised, treading Rome as theytrod Alexandria, as they trod the narrow Island of Cos. The spokesof the _quadriga_ wheels flash, but they do not turn. They burn likeday-stars above the Arch of Nero. The horses poise over Rome, aconstellation of morning, triumphant above Emperors, proud,indifferent, enduring, relentlessly spurning the hot dust of Rome.Hot dust clouds up about them, but not one particle sticks to theirgilded manes. Dust is nothing, a mere smoke of disappearing hours.Slowly they trot forward without moving, and time passes and passesthem, brushing along their sides like wind. People go and come in the streets of Rome, shuffling over the basaltpaving-stones in their high latcheted sandals. White and purple,like the white sun and the purple shadows, the senators pass,followed by a crowd of slaves. Waves of brown-coated populace effacethemselves before a litter, carried by eight Cappadocians inlight-red tunics; as it moves along, there is the flicker of a violet_stola_ and the blowing edge of a palla of sky-white blue. A lady,going to the bath to lie for an hour in the crimson and wine-redreflections of a marble chamber, to glide over a floor of green andwhite stones into a Carraran basin, where the green and blue waterwill cover her rose and blue-veined flesh with a slipping veil. AquaClaudia, Aqua Virgo, Aqua Marcia, drawn from the hills to lie againsta woman's body. Her breasts round hollows for themselves in thesky-green water, her fingers sift the pale water and drop it from heras a lark drops notes backwards into the sky. The lady lies againstthe lipping water, supine and indolent, a pomegranate, apassion-flower, a silver-flamed lily, lapped, slapped, lulled, by theripples which stir under her faintly moving hands. Later, beneath a painting of twelve dancing girls upon a gold ground,the slaves will anoint her with cassia, or nakte, or spikenard, orbalsam, and she will go home in the swaying litter to eat the tonguesof red flamingoes, and drink honey-wine flavoured with far-smellingmint. Legionaries ravish Egypt for her entertainment; they bring her rosesfrom Alexandria at a cost of thirty thousand pounds. Yet she wouldrather be at Baiae, one is so restricted in one's pleasures in Rome!The games are not until next week, and her favourite gladiator,Naxos, is in training just now, therefore time drags. The lady lagsover her quail and peacocks' eggs. How dull it is. White, and blue,and stupid. Rome! Smoke flutters and veers from the top of the Temple of Vesta. Altarsmoke winding up to the gilded horses as they tread above Rome.Below--laughing, jangling, pushing and rushing. Two carts are jammedat a street corner, and the oaths of the drivers mingle, and snap,and corrode, like hot fused metal, one against another. They hissand sputter, making a confused chord through which the squeal of aderrick winding up a granite slab pierces, shrill and nervous, asharp boring sound, shoring through the wide, white light of theRoman sky. People are selling things: matches, broken glass, peas,sausages, cakes. A string of donkeys, with panniers loaded with redasparagus and pale-green rue, minces past the derrick, the donkeyssqueeze, one by one, with little patting feet, between the derrickand the choked crossing. "Hey! Gallus, have you heard that Cæsarhas paid a million _sestertii_ for a Murrhine vase. It is green andwhite, flaked like a Spring onion, and has the head of Minerva cut init, sharp as a signet." "And who has a better right indeed, now thatTitus has conquered Judea. He will be here next week, they say, andthen we shall have a triumph worth looking at." "Famous indeed! Weneed something. It's been abominably monotonous lately. Why, therewas not enough blood spilled in the games last week to give one theleast appetite. I'm damned stale, for one." Still, over Rome, the white sun sails the blue, stretching sky,casting orange and purple striæ down upon the marble city, cool andmajestic, between cool hills, white and omnipotent, dying of languor,amusing herself for a moment with the little boats floating up theTiber bringing the good grain of Carthage, then relaxed and fallingas water falls, dropping into the bath. Weak as water; withoutcontour as water; colourless as water; Rome bathes, and relaxes, andmelts. Fluid and fluctuating, a liquid city pouring itself back intothe streams of the earth. And above, on the Arch of Nero, hard,metallic, firm, cold, and permanent, the bronze horses trot slowly,not moving, and the moon casts the fine-edged shadow of them downupon the paving-stones. Hills of the city: Pincian, Esquiline, Cælian, Aventine, the crimsontip of the sun burns against you, and you start into sudden clearnessand glow red, red-gold, saffron, gradually diminishing to an outlineof blue. The sun mounts over Rome, and the Arch of Augustus glitterslike a cleft pomegranate; the Temples of Julius Cæsar, Castor, andSaturn, turn carbuncle, and rose, and diamond. Columns divide intodouble edges of flash and shadow; domes glare, inverted berylshanging over arrested scintillations. The fountains flake and fringewith the scatter of the sun. The mosaic floors of _atriums_ are nolonger stone, but variegated fire; higher, on the walls, the picturespainted in the white earth of Melos, the red earth of Sinope, theyellow ochre of Attica, erupt into flame. The legs of satyrs jerkwith desire, the dancers whirl in torch-bright involutions. Grapessplit and burst, spurting spots and sparks of sun. It is morning in Rome, and the bronze horses on the Arch of Nero trotquietly forward without moving, but no one can see them, they areonly a dazzle, a shock of stronger light against the white-blue sky. Morning in Rome; and the whole city foams out to meet it, seething,simmering, surging, seeping. All between the Janiculum and thePalatine is undulating with people. Scarlet, violet, and purpletogas pattern the mass of black and brown. Murex-dyed silk dressesflow beside raw woollen fabrics. The altars smoke incense, thebridges shake under the caking mass of sight-seers. "Titus! Titus!_Io triumphe!_" Even now the troops are collected near the Temple ofApollo, outside the gates, waiting for the signal to march. In theparching Roman morning, the hot dust rises and clouds over thecity--an aureole of triumph. The horses on the Arch of Nero paw thegolden dust, but it passes, passes, brushing along their burnishedsides like wind. What is that sound? The marble city shivers to the treading of feet.Cæsar's legions marching, foot--foot--hundreds, thousands of feet.They beat the ground, rounding each step double.Coming--coming--cohort after cohort, with brazen trumpets marking thetime. One--two--one--two--laurel-crowned each one of you,cactus-fibred, harsh as sand grinding the rocks of a treeless land,rough and salt as a Dead Sea wind, only the fallen are left behind.Blood-red plumes, jarring to the footfalls; they have passed throughthe gate, they are in the walls of the mother city, of marble Rome.Their tunics are purple embroidered with gold, their armour clanks asthey walk, the cold steel of their swords is chill in the sun, eachis a hero, one by one, endless companies, the soldiers come. Back toRome with a victor's spoils, with a victor's wreath on every head,and Judah broken is dead, dead! "_Io triumphe!_" The shout knocksand breaks upon the spears of the legionaries. The God of the Jews is overborne, he has failed his people. See thestuffs from the Syrian looms, and the vestments of many-colours, theywere taken from the great Temple at Jerusalem. And the watchingcrowds split their voices acclaiming the divine triumph. Mars, andJuno, and Minerva, and the rest, those gods are the best who bringvictory! And the beasts they have over there! Is that a crocodile?And that bird with a tail as long as a banner, what do you call that?Look at the elephants, and the dromedaries! They are harnessed injewels. Oh! Oh! The beautiful sight! Here come the prisoners,dirty creatures. "That's a good-looking girl there. I have rather afancy for a Jewess. I'll get her, by Bacchus, if I have to mortgagemy farm. A man too, of course, to keep the breed going; it will be agood investment, although, to be sure, I want the girl myself.Castor and Pollux, did you see that picture! Ten men disembowelledon the steps of the altar. That is better than a gladiator show anyday. I wish I had been there. Simon, oh, Simon! Spit at him,Lucullus. Thumbs down for Simon! Fancy getting him alive, I wonderhe didn't kill himself first like Cleopatra. This is a glorious day,I haven't had such fun in years." The bronze horses tread quietly above the triumphing multitudes.They too have been spoils of war, yet they stand here on the Arch ofNero dominating Rome. Time passes--passes--but the horses, calm andcontained, move forward, dividing one minute from another and leavingeach behind. You should be still now, Roman populace. These are the decorationsof the Penetralia, the holy Sanctuary which your soldiers haveprofaned. But the people jeer and scoff, and comment on the queerarticles carried on the heads of the soldiers. Tragedy indeed! Theysee no tragedy, only an immense spectacle, unique and satisfying.The crowd clears its throat and spits and shouts "_Io triumphe! Iotriumphe!_" against the cracking blare of brazen trumpets. Slowly they come, the symbols of a beaten religion: the Golden Tablefor the Shew-Bread, the Silver Trumpets that sounded the Jubilee, theSeven-Branched Candlestick, the very Tables of the Law which Mosesbrought down from Mount Sinai. Can Jupiter conquer these? Slowlythey pass, glinting in the sunlight, staring in the light of day,mocked and exhibited. Lord God of Hosts, fall upon these people,send your thunders upon them, hurl the lightnings of your wrathagainst this multitude, raze their marble city so that not one stoneremain standing. But the sun shines unclouded, and the holy vesselspass onward through the Campus Martius, through the Circus Flaminius,up the Via Sacra to the Capitol, and then... The bronze horses lookinto the brilliant sky, they trot slowly without moving, they advanceslowly, one foot raised. There is always another step--one, andanother. How many does not matter, so that each is taken. The _spolia opima_ have passed. The crowd holds its breath andquivers. Everyone is tiptoed up to see above his neighbour; theysway and brace themselves in their serried ranks. Away, over theheads, silver eagles glitter, each one marking the passage of alegion. The "Victorious Legion" goes by, the "Indomitable Legion,"the "Spanish Legion," and those with a crested lark on their helmets,and that other whose centurions are almost smothered under theshining reflections of the medallions fastened to their armour.Cohort after cohort, legion on the heels of legion, the glisteninggreaves rise and flash and drop and pale, scaling from sparkle todullness in a series of rhythmic angles, constantly repeated. Theyswing to the tones of straight brass trumpets, they jut out and fallat the call of spiral bugles. Above them, the pointed shields moveevenly, right to left--right to left. The horses curvet and prance,and shiver back, checked, on their haunches; the javelins of thehorsemen are so many broad-ended sticks of flame. Those are the eagles of the Imperial Guard, and behind are two goldenchariots. "_Io triumphe!_" The roar drowns the trumpets and bugles,the clatter of the horses' hoofs is a mere rattle of sand ricochetingagainst the voice of welcoming Rome. The Emperor Vespasian rides inone chariot, in the other stands Titus. Titus, who has subduedJudea, who has humbled Jehovah, and brought the sacred vessels of theLord God of Hosts back with him as a worthy offering to the people ofRome. Cheer, therefore, good people, you have the Throne of Heavento recline upon; you are possessed of the awful majesty of the God ofthe Jews; beneath your feet are spread the emblems of the Most High;and your hands are made free of the sacred instruments of Salvation. What god is that who falls before pikes and spears! Here is anothergod, his face and hands stained with vermilion, after the manner ofthe Capitoline Jupiter. His car is of ivory and gold, green plumesnod over the heads of his horses, the military bracelets on his armsseem like circling serpents of bitter flame. The milk-white horsesdraw him slowly to the Capitol, step by step, along the ViaTriumphalis, and step by step the old golden horses on the Arch ofNero tread down the hours of the lapsing day. That night, forty elephants bearing candelabra light up the ranges ofpillars supporting the triple portico of the Capitol. Fortyilluminated elephants--and the light of their candles is reflected inthe polished sides of the great horses, above, on the Arch of Nero,slowly trotting forward, stationary yet moving, in the soft nightwhich hangs over Rome. _PAVANNE TO A BRASS ORCHESTRA_ _Water falls from the sky, and green-fanged lightning mouths theheavens. The Earth rolls upon itself, incessantly creating morningand evening. The moon calls to the waters, swinging them forward andback, and the sun draws closer and as rhythmically recedes, advancingin the pattern of an ancient dance, making a figure of leaves andaridness. Harmony of chords and pauses, fugue of returning balances,canon and canon repeating the theme of Earth, Air, and Water._ _A single cymbal-crash of Fire, and for an instant the concertedmusic ceases. But it resumes--Earth, Air, and Water, and out of itrise the metals, unconsumed. Brazen cymbals, trumpets of silver,bells of bronze. They mock at fire. They burn upon themselves andretain their entities. Not yet the flame which shall destroy them.They shall know all flames but one. They shall be polished andcorroded, yet shall they persist and play the music which accompaniesthe strange ceremonious dance of the sun._
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