DOI chapter:
Chapter III: Past and Present - Santa Lucia, etc.
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0130
Naples
sventrimento has not yet reached, and where the cholera
once played havoc—or, stranger still, passed over!
“This is the Fondaco Verde of Basso Porto ;
They say ’tis going to be enlarged at last,
After so long ! Well, ’tis a good idea
To let fresh air into that breathless past.
“ In this alley, ill-paved, tortuous,
Where the very sun’s rays are denied,
During the cholera, two years ago,
Only one died, they say, only one died!
“ Impossible ! So, if for an instant,
Within its misery lost, you would have sworn.
Only one dead ? Yes, but a hundred born.
“ And this greasy, ever-screaming mass,
Augment, increase, until to hundreds grown
No alley this ; a rank field, ploughed and sown.” 1
Here it is, in these poor streets, that the links between
the Naples of yesterday and that of to-day are found-
links that will not be broken, though so many of the
old landmarks of the city have gone. De Falco,
Celano, and the old guides who centuries ago conducted
foreigners through their beloved city, might no longer
find their way about; the character in Dumas’s book
who could find his way all over Naples in the shade
would be at a loss amid the stretches of dazzling
squares and streets. But the old traits and customs
remain. Still is the number of four-footed animals
vaster in proportion to the population than in any
other city in the world ; still are man and beast
1 Translated from the Neapolitan of di Giacomo.
6o
sventrimento has not yet reached, and where the cholera
once played havoc—or, stranger still, passed over!
“This is the Fondaco Verde of Basso Porto ;
They say ’tis going to be enlarged at last,
After so long ! Well, ’tis a good idea
To let fresh air into that breathless past.
“ In this alley, ill-paved, tortuous,
Where the very sun’s rays are denied,
During the cholera, two years ago,
Only one died, they say, only one died!
“ Impossible ! So, if for an instant,
Within its misery lost, you would have sworn.
Only one dead ? Yes, but a hundred born.
“ And this greasy, ever-screaming mass,
Augment, increase, until to hundreds grown
No alley this ; a rank field, ploughed and sown.” 1
Here it is, in these poor streets, that the links between
the Naples of yesterday and that of to-day are found-
links that will not be broken, though so many of the
old landmarks of the city have gone. De Falco,
Celano, and the old guides who centuries ago conducted
foreigners through their beloved city, might no longer
find their way about; the character in Dumas’s book
who could find his way all over Naples in the shade
would be at a loss amid the stretches of dazzling
squares and streets. But the old traits and customs
remain. Still is the number of four-footed animals
vaster in proportion to the population than in any
other city in the world ; still are man and beast
1 Translated from the Neapolitan of di Giacomo.
6o