sabato 10 maggio 2008

Somma-Vesuvio

"Ecco il Vesuvio, poc'anzi verdeggiante di vigneti ombrosi, qui un'uva pregiata faceva traboccare le tinozze; Bacco amò questi balzi più dei colli di Nisa, su questo monte i Satiri in passato sciolsero le lor danze; questa, di Sparta più gradita, era di Venere la sede, questo era il luogo rinomato per il nome di Ercole. Or tutto giace sommerso in fiamme ed in tristo lapillo: ora non vorrebbero gli dèi che fosse stato loro consentito d'esercitare qui tanto potere." (Marziale Lib. IV. Ep. 44 )


"To nothing but Vesuvius; but the mountain is the genius of the scene. From every indication of the ruin it has worked, we look, again, with an absorbing interest to where its smoke is rising up into the sky. It is beyond us, as we thread the ruined streets: above us, as we stand upon the ruined walls, we follow it through every vista of broken columns, as we wander through the empty court-yards of the houses; and through the garlandings and interlacings of every wanton vine. Turning away to Paestum yonder, to see the awful structures built, the least aged of them, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and standing yet, erect in lonely majesty, upon the wild, malaria-blighted plain--we watch Vesuvius as it disappears from the prospect, and watch for it again, on our return, with the same thrill of interest: as the doom and destiny of all this beautiful country, biding its terrible time. "(Dickens "Pictures from Italy" Cap. 11)

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