NOTE
Reading edition
Chapters VIII–XI have been enlarged and re-written since August, 1903, when they appeared as A Festa on Mount Eryx in The Monthly Review. I have to thank Mr. John Murray for kindly giving me permission to reprint them here.
A few sentences in Chapter XIII have been taken from a pamphlet I wrote and had printed for private circulation in 1904, entitled: Diary of a Journey through North Italy to Sicily in the spring of 1903, undertaken for the purpose of leaving the MSS. of three books by Samuel Butler at Varallo-Sesia, Aci-Reale and Trapani.
It would be impossible to enumerate and thank all the many friends who, with the courtesy and patience that never desert a Sicilian, have given me information, explanation and assistance. Among them are two, however, to whom, and to whose families, I desire to give my special thanks, namely: Cavaliere Uffiziale Giovanni Grasso, of the Teatro Macchiavelli, Catania; and Signor Achille Greco, of the Marionette Theatre, in the Piazza Nuova, Palermo.
Signor Greco wrote to me recently that, for Rosina’s riddle in his episode of the masks in Samson, he had dipped in the stream of children’s games current to-day in Palermo; he did not appear to know that Plato had dipped in his own Athenian stream for the riddle quoted by Glaucon towards the end of the fifth book of the Republic. The riddles are similar not because Rosina had read the dialogue, nor because Glaucon had seen the play, but because the two streams flowed as one until Greek colonists took their folk-lore with them into Sicily before Plato was born.
CONTENTS
SELINUNTE
chapter page
I. The Brigadier and the Lottery 3
CASTELLINARIA
II. Peppino 29
III. The Professor 41
IV. The Wine-ship 52
CATANIA
V. Michelle and the Princess of Bizerta 77
TRAPANI
VI. Ferraù and Angelica 97
VII. The Death of Bradamante 113
MOUNT ERYX
VIII. Monte san Giuliano 131
IX. The Madonna and the Personaggi 149
X. The Universal Deluge 166
XI. The Return 181
CUSTONACI
XII. Faith and Superstition 189
CALATAFIMI
XIII. The Prodigal Son and the Arts 213
PALERMO
XIV. Samson 235
XV. The Conversion of the Emperor Constantine 254
CASTELLINARIA
XVI. A Great Actor 279
XVII. Supper with the Players 290
XVIII. A Young Critic 304
XIX. Brancaccia 317