Witch 2b. The Cretan dance. Fauna appears

Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriele Rossetti (1828-1882). Wikipedia. Attribution
Venus was also called Verticordia by the Romans since she was capable of 'changing human hearts'. Worshipped during the Veneralia festival (April 1) Verticordia had a temple on the Via Salaria

[Read the Italian original. An Englishman living in Milan, Andy, is helping me with some editing.]

Taken aback by the inexorable trajectory - I was always good with the javelin do you recall Quintus? - the lass however succeeded in propelling herself forward with such impetus that the deadly lance missed her abdomen and tore her tunic at the level of her hindquarters without scratching her flesh I believe.

The force that had driven her forward was so lethal I was thunderstruck.

I therefore took my bow.

Arrows whistled in quick succession though wavered on purpose (unpredictability is deadly, remember?). She nevertheless avoided my darts by performing this odd dance on the rump of her horse (of undoubted Cretan origin, Quintus).

Bull leaping. Minoan fresco from palace of Knossos, Crete, currently in the Herakleion museum

She circled with elegance, an inhuman melody emitting from her throat - a terrible buzz, deep and acute - her fair legs now concealed now flashing through the cracks of her tunic.

And I, closer and closer, our steeds' flanks dangerously scraping against each other, my arrows all gone, what happened Quintus was that I became so enchanted and progressively unwarlike due to that mysterious creature.

Although the worst was yet to come, Di Manes!

After the Cretan dance the girl had assumed a crouched-on-all-fours, feline position on the rump of her stallion, launched at breakneck speed on the forest damp obscure recesses. The siren of the woods had lowered her shoulders, arched her back and pointed her rear upwards whose perfect roundness was thus offered to my view.

A sculpture from the Norman Lindsay House (see last image below for infos). Attribution

The sun bursting through the clouds heralding a spectacular sunset, the noise of animals becoming deafening, I was there, those half & symmetrical moons in front of me, so close that I could almost touch them, a pale-skinned double globe with designs of a delicate blue.

Her garment lacerated by my pilum on her hindquarters did not keep much from sight Quintus! Geometries made sensuality, ideas of beauty made flesh were exposed and stirring deliria of sumptuous pleasures and everlasting feelings of lust & love.

Well, such unchaste commotion, dear friend of better days, ended up with being fatal to me.

The flaming haired maiden took advantage of my confusion and making use of the arm hidden from my sight grasped, from her bag, strings to whose ends small brass spheres were attached.

She then hurled the strange weapon with such vehemence in the direction of Hælend's legs that both horse and rider - that is, us – couldn't but fall to the ground with a loud crash due to the speed of the race.

The tattooed female's craftiness, however, cost her dearly as well since her stallion (was he confounded also?) stumbled in turn over superficial roots and hurtled down over the mossy weeds & soil with an even louder crash due the beast's bulk.

Another Lindsay's sculpture. Attribution

I hit my head on the turf and got scratched all over.

My initial stunned condition prevented me from realizing at first that the picta had vanished but her horse was lying down on the ground nearby and was letting out neighs of pain.

Hælend, up already instead, was calmly approaching the Italian thoroughbred which she coldly executed with three violent (and accurate) kicks in the head.

Hælend looked at me, a look of revenge in her eyes. The victory of valour over nobility? Well, how could I blame her. Moreover the white stallion was wounded and had to be dispatched. The wolves that haunt the forest would have caused him a horrible death.

Hælend then walked towards me. The expression of her eyes revealed kindness, concern. She licked my wounds and as if by miracle I immediately felt better. I got up and stretched. Hector, my gladius, was still on me and my helmet I found behind a bush.
Hælend, satisfied, was already in a nearby meadow grazing Albion's emerald grass.

Well, Quintus, we know too well she isn't as classy as an Italian horse (I can well believe it!) but what a fantastic gift from the Angles and the Genii protecting our Rome!
Therefore I couldn't but chant:

Non ergo essem
dei Romae mei
Orientisque Aegyptorumque,
non omnino essem,
nisi essetis in me...

[I wouldn't exist then
Ye gods of Rome,
Of Egypt & the Orient,
I wouldn't exist
If ye weren't in me ...]

Isis mothering. Credits

This song, performed with Egyptian tones (I'm a decent singer, I'll admit) was followed by a profound growling that left me disconcerted, since the forest animals had fallen silent, frozen.

I became afraid. Had my psalm been inappropriate? Had the British gods gotten angry at how I had dealt with that red-headed Albion's daughter?
The thing is, lost as I was in my doubts I hadn't noticed the Creature. Who with quiet footsteps was heading toward me.

She,
Feral Being, goat goddess
By shepherds & peasants loved
And horribly feared,
Emerged before me.

This is how we imagine Fauna. Sculpture from the Norman Lindsay gardens. Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler & boxer (1879-1969). Attribution

The Creature, daughter of Hermes and Dryope, let out a cry and the wood resounded.

Then she seized me, her body steaming with humours. One cannot escape from a goddess ...

My surrender to such a beastly pleasure let go from my memory the rumour that those dei inferi were supposed to have died with the advent of Christ ...

Not that it mattered. A sudden tune played on marsh reeds made ​​the air vibrate together with my senses.

Too late I realized my foolhardiness. The last beam of sunlight, violent and unexpected, pierced the scene and Pan's cry was heard again, terrifying.

Uncontrollable panic shook my whole person.

And Fauna, Bacchus' lascivious companion, - arms hands legs and bodies giving and receiving pleasure - gripped with extreme violence what makes me a man.

My scream, though not panic as hers, ripped through the night that was about to lazily fall upon the wood.

All then was nothing. Darkness closed in.

Witch 2a. Striking to kill

[I recognized her immediately Quintus. It was that savage now badly disguised as a lady. Disguised as a lady? Ah she really needed a lesson from a civilized Roman!]

I advanced in her direction.

She had less blue paint on her face now although her beautifully moon-white skin was of course still adorned with blue tattoos all over.

Her tunic had long ornamental cuts showing glimpses of a muscled and perfectly shaped leg, which confounded me for an instant – you know this weakness I have for long and well-shaped legs (not to mention curves) on the body of a woman.

She appeared concentrated on three strange trees rich with berries of three different colours - white, red, black - one for each tree.

From the bag across her horse’s back I caught sight of more berries plus herbs, mushrooms, roots – all of amazing colours.
"F@%& her suave beauty!" I cursed and gotten off my horse I began to run towards her.

She was quicker. A phosphorescent glare amidst a halo of red hair and away they vanished - the woman and the stallion - into the deep of the wood.

I felt Hælend’s snout behind me so I swiftly turned around, jumped unto horseback and the chase began.

I soon got closer but at the last moment the picta dashed away with her stallion. Got closer again and to my surprise once more they dashed like a shooting star.

I realized that the speed of the race was wildly increasing and at every instant both the picta and I had to avoid the low branches that risked hitting us right on the head.

What sorceries were those? The weird race left me so full of wonder my friend. But right when I was starting to ask myself fanciful questions about the woman she mercurially let me reach her.

“Now I gotcha picta meretrix!” I bellowed. So I took a long thong of leather from my bag with a running noose Wulf had taught me to use in hunting and tossed it in her direction. But with amazing speed - her blue-green eyes flashing, pulling out a gladius similar to mine though slightly longer - she cut off the thong with abrupt force.

So here we engaged into this 'attack and defence' fight with quick blows from both sides since she possessed fencing capabilities different from mine but no less effective.

Talented Hælend had in the meanwhile placed herself very close to the white stallion and had bumped him so violently that the majestic steed had staggered and the picta had almost fallen but rebounding miraculously from the branches she had clung unto she was now landed (an incredible aerial pirouette!) on the horse’s immaculate back.

And there she was, standing ferociously, her lovely sandalled feet perfectly parallel!

Then, gotten dangerously close to us again, her horse not being stupid Quintus (I can well believe it, it was a Roman steed!), she clutched as fast as lightning what was left of the cord in my hand and unhorsed me with utmost violence.

Spirits of the Underworld! How could I ever imagine a woman could be so terribly brutal, fast and agile, all at the same time!

She reminded me of some naked-breasted women in the island of Crete where my father took me as a child. They vaulted elegantly (and fiercely) over bulls' backs thus refreshing a tradition today corrupt though still amazing - a performance carried out to stun travellers (and to collect coins or food from them).

Thus violently drawn to the white & huge stallion's body, my head fell with a thud right between her beautiful legs that smelled of fragrant musk.

Now a slight confusion arose (which softened me towards her, what a moron I am) but didn't blur though my decision to raise the level of Force up to number Five.

Do you remember the relationship between numbers and life which our Magister taught us in Rome with his inspired words? In every normal condition we since then usually place ourselves under the protection of Number Three, the Number of All.

The Tetractys, a mathematical & mystical symbol devised by the the Pythagoreans

But, such levels, here in Britain, while being trained by Wulf and his friends, I have aptly extended to field fight during these long months. I've in fact grown into a better soldier thanks to an innate instinct we true Romans possess, but also I'll admit thanks to Wulf's and his two friends' military drilling.
So, after taking that decision – switching to number 5 Force – I proceeded, and bit her calf with my teeth which made her cry out loud.

So, after taking that decision – of switching to number 5 Force – I proceeded and bit her calf with my teeth which made her cry out loud.

She reacted and threw me in the air with a tremendous kick and if it weren't for sweet Hælend's promptness, Quintus meus, my soul would now be fluttering along the flaming Phlegethon where bad sinners - I am one no doubt - are sent.

In fact I landed in slow motion on Hælend like a sack of German potatoes. The clash with the picta had become almost aquatic, as if a spell from her had been cast on the scene and we were fighting in the crystal waters of a sacred river.

At this point a decision had to be taken.

The woman was indeed a formidable warrior and a dangerous black magic sorceress the Roman custom didn't tolerate. It grieved me having to kill her but I realized I had to do it for the sake of survival: she lived too close to my tower and could attack me at any time of day or night.

I was swallowing - the perfume of her body had slightly cracked the impassible will of the warrior - when the level of confrontation was by me brought to the great power of the Seven Number.

As we school buddies know, Quintus, the notions expressed by the heptad are ALL that is right according to circumstances - there implying fortune, control and what leads things to an end among the rest.

One of the heptad's deities was also Mars, the Roman god of war.

I found my spear on the ground. I took it.

With speed, strength and utmost precision (I know in advance whether a pilum, my favourite weapon, will hit the target or not) I shot the long sharp-pointed lance against the sorceress' abdomen.

The sun was about to set over a marvellous landscape when the iron point began its deadly flight.

Manius found. A ship sailing towards Albien. Massimo in the Subura

Salita Dei Borgia. Subura. Rome.
Click here for credits

It's time to confess that he who is writing conceals (and shares) within his soul the Genius of Manius Papirius Lentulus. What is a Genius? It is the numinous every ancient Roman harbours in his soul (a woman has the Juno), a bit like a guardian spirit or what the Christians since Manius' time will soon call a guardian angel.

Names may change, but basically ...

ψ

Hey, how the heck can a Genius be shared by both a 62-years-old man of today and an ancient Roman soldier of 35 trapped in ancient Britain?
(and, what’s more, living in a parallel universe even if almost identical to ours?)

Hey, why the heck do you people think I know.

ψ

Giorgio, he who is writing, has had that horrible dream again last night.

In the subsequent evening he is phoning Massimo, a black-haired 33-year-old athletic Roman, once an excellent soccer player and Giorgio's former pupil (and now friend).

Massimo, dumped by his wife (and not holding together much since then) has moved to a small flat in Monti, Rome, a rione corresponding more or less to ancient Subura, the slum district of ancient Rome, (in)famous for its dubious tabernae, brothels and gangs [more on Subura here].

The place, today clean and fashionable, still hides incidentally a few dubious locals and the police mostly turn a blind eye: ancient traditions are hard to die in this country, you know. Out of respect. And out of do-nothingness ...

ψ

Giorgio has tried quite a lot during the last 6 months to help Massimo move on. But recently it is him that is calling his ex-student for help.

Giorgio: “Always these horrible dreams! A few nights ago the death of Theodoric the Great, this old man, his white hair all over his big chest protected by a plate crammed with jewels, lying on a sumptuous bed placed at the centre of an immensely vivid mosaic.

With the calm, unwavering voice of the true leader Theodoric was recommending to the weeping Goths that they should love the Roman senate and the Roman people, and that they should appease the Eastern emperor through their deeds and with the help of God.

Again, two nights ago, I dreamt about the perverse though beautiful face of a woman dancer, then about the whole of her luscious body since she was dancing almost naked all around me and finally ended up morphing into a princess or  queen. Aah, she looked shrewd, perfidious wearing her radiant Byzantine attire.

So you see, my dreams change. Only two elements in them never do."

Massimo: “La roscia and the fricken soldier?”

[roscia = read-headed woman in Roman dialect, pronounced 'rosha'; fricken, you may know already]

Giorgio: “Yes, la roscia and that young ancient Roman living in a tower with marshes infested by wolves and blondish savages all around. I know it's been one month that I've been exhausting you with my nightmares.

Last night la roscia, as blue-skinned as ever, was wearing a strange gray wool dress with a green veil that covered her neck and partly her face, a hunting horn hanging from her belt. She suddenly looked at me with eyes that pierced my soul so violently I felt dizzy and hit my head on a tree. Hercle! I cried I dunno why. Surrounded by hordes of cats she then began to twirl around a trunk with chains fastened to its ends and bronze balls hanging from the chains.

Massimo: “Ah Prof, sure you're not depressed like me? Since Giulia left my life is shit.”

Giorgio: "Daje a Ma' … I'm ok, really. In any case I thought the read-head was about to hit me with the bronze balls but my limbs got frozen and I woke up wet from sweat and couldn't get back to sleep until I took some melatonin and was soon snoring like a boar and dreaming again - Flavia told me. 

And then I saw them.”

Massimo: “You saw who.”

Giorgio: “A small group of people on the deck of a light Roman merchant vessel, "about 100 feet long and 20 feet in the beam" (see image below and credits) leaving the port of Vada Sabatia, not far from today's Genoa, on the North West Italian coast. Men and women on their 30s dressed in the ancient manner and appearing as long time buddies. The weird part, it's as if I knew them already in some way.”

A Roman merchant vessel

Massimo: "What?"

Giorgio: "Yes, then all changed and we were in a place similar to the north French coast, light rain, wind, silvery water all around. I was on deck too trying to get closer to the buddies' group but again my limbs were frozen.

I then called them, called them and kept yelling the same words over and over."

Massimo: "Which words."

Giorgio: "Anglia in orientem spectans! Anglia in orientem spectans!
And also:
Septentrionalis Icenorum regio! Septentrionalis Icenorum regio!

What does all this mean for Chrissake!!"



Massimo: "Easy Prof, it's simple:  Anglia gazing towards the East. In the northern area of the land of the Iceni."

Giorgio: "That I understood, the question though being: what the hell is this all about. I have checked. It's somewhere in Britain on the eastern coast (near Hunstanton?) where the Wash is located, a square-mouthed bay where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire - I read on the Wiki [see images on the left and below]. I feel like something is brewing.

I mean, if you have spare time and wanna forget Giulia for a while (it'd do you good) why don't you help me understand?"

Massimo kept silent for a while.

The Wash bay today

Giorgio: "What I forgot to say, five new passengers joined us when we were leaving France, I think, ie Gaul. Two elegant women (two Syrian courtesans I heard), two men clad in black and red, a bit vicious looking and speaking to nobody (one with a hawk-like face), and a blue-eyed good natured Greek merchant in his 30s as well who was bound to South East Britannia to sell his goods (olives, olive oil & resinated wine) to the Romano-Celtic population.

Because of the wind I heard only fragments of their names:  Ch’ae…Rich..., Phi, ...Jen....L..And...Ze...Dou...Daf....An...Cyb...etc. Very confusing. But Pavlos, that name I heard clearly (the Greek perhaps?)

And when I was shouting those words one of the buddies suddenly brightened up (Rich?), looked at me in astonishment and began to shout back even louder, at the top of his lungs:

ANGLIA IN ORIENTEM SPECTANS! ANGLIA IN ORIENTEM SPECTAANS! SEPTENTRIONALIS ICENORUM REGIOOOOOO!

(For God's sake I thought).

Then a few of them started to yell those same words with a weird measured pulse so that they could both sing and dance:

ANG GLI
NORIE NTEM
SPEC TANS
SPEC SPEC TANS TANS
TANS TANS TAANS GLI
TANS TANS ICEE TAAAAAAAAANS!!

(Oh my God I thought).

But after a while we were all dancing like mad and drinking idromele - the girls being not at all bad and a big amphora of that honey wine having soon appeared as if by magic (the Greek merchant? As soon as he had joined the journey, his pensive eyes always looking in the distance, he had appeared like the eternally resourceful Ulysses ...)

One last funny (but horrible) detail: when I woke up I was drunk and my legs tired as if I had danced all night!"

Silence for a few moments.

Then Massimo,loweringly, uttered his words:

"Prof, you are nuts like me or even worse ... Yesterday I saw Giulia in via del Corso with that motherfucker. They were shopping - Armani, Gucci, you name it, the jackass is filthy rich. I was about to reach them and squash that bastard's face like a pumpkin but instead headed home and got drunk. I can't go on like that for long I suppose ...”

Massimo switched off his phone and went out.

He felt angry and depressed. Even his good ex teacher was now giving clear signs of insanity. The final straw, beyond any doubt.

He spent a long time in an Irish pub close by (Finnegan's, at the Salita dei Borgia, see picture at the top of the page) after which he found himself out in the cool of the night.

ψ

Less windows were lit now.

The rione was quieter.

A drunk whore was walking unhurriedly down the dimly lit Salita.

A cat was croaking like a frog behind a trash container.

Strange metamorphoses, in the deep of a night full of chaos (and sorrow).

Click for credits and to enlarge

Lo osservava da tempo
nume dagli occhi impassibili,
le parche, mani rugose,
filando la lana ...

[A numen had since long
Been watching him, eyes impassive.
The Parcae, wrinkled hands,
Spinning their thread ...]

A readheaded witch disappears in the woods. The Angles. An angel smiling

MANIUS QUINTO SAL.

Dear Quintus, never friendship is so dear as in times of distress.

I have found a big box of codices and scrolls together with a few amphorae of decent Gallic wine in a Romano-British farm set on fire by the barbarians. All had been well concealed under the cellar floor.

Vita hominis sine literis mors est, or, man's life without learning is death.

And yet, when I look at these unclean, uneducated German Angles, I cannot but admire some virtues they have (and we haven't any more). And they were after all often able to rout the Romano-British. Although when they see the huge buildings the Romans built they think we are a people of giants!

Britain in 550 CE. Manius is somewhere with the Angles. Credits

The question Quintus now arises: can man live fully in total ignorance? Or even, nihil scire vita jucundissima? 'Tis the merriest life to know nothing?

Speaking of Celts I met a strange red-head in the woods around my tower full of marshes, bears, wolves and eagles. She was collecting herbs and berries and had a curiously coloured & scanty dress, her pale skin adorned with paint and tattoo motifs all over.

On seeing me she shrieked and disappeared like a night bird but I kept feeling her eyes on me while even my hounds couldn't perceive her presence any more. Hercle! So eerie it was I deemed wiser to get back to my crenellated refuge.

I later wondered if she could speak Latin. It’d be such a joy to hear sentences spoken in our beautiful language, whatever inflection they may have. But she may be dangerous.

I'm trapped with the Angles, Quintus meus, though they are kind enough to me.

They probably see me like a dwarf, or a clown. The giant Romans of their imagination, you know ... They ignore they are the real giants, they being in truth much bigger than the average Roman.

They are blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, extremely rude-mannered and, well, stinking. Not that I smell that better. I miss the comfort of our thermal baths!

Pensive and silent they may nonetheless suddenly burst into a sort of Polypheme’s laughter:

AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH.

Jupiter!

Besides, bibunt ut Gothi, they drink like the Goths, or even more. I swear I’ve never seen people getting THAT drunk.

But I'm beginning to like their silence. Romans are such chatter-boxes (I am, as you know). Think of our Cicero: what a windbag although I’ll admit five of his precious works retrieved in that cellar express in sound old-times Latin so many gems of the sweet Greeks' wisdom.

I am again exercising my body thanks to my new friends. We fight, run, ride and throw arrows, all for the simple joy of being alive. They are kind enough not to break my neck and I feel much better after so many years of sedentary work.

I return to my tower in the evening where I frugally have my dinner and, lost in reading and thought, I sip what is left of my Gallic amphorae.

Unfortunately, vina parant animos Veneri, id est wine prepares our souls for Venus.

I noticed that some Anglia women are looking at me with a bit of curiosity. Some of them are very attractive and sturdy. I guess I appear different to them. And I think I perceived in at least a couple of them that naughty look that is universally unmistakable.

In truth, dear Quintus, alius est amor, alius cupido, love is one thing, lust quite another.

A Roman girl painted by the Victorian Alma Tadema

The latter would void my soul in a moment of loneliness where I feel badly in need of Clelia’s black eyes and tender smile.

Where is she now on earth? Did she forget me?

The last time we met we spent some time in an Augustan garden (in North West Italy) overlooking the Padus river. All was so glorious, beautiful, with scented flowers all over the place and the Alpine peaks towering in the background.

Clelia wore a shining garland on her black hair and a dress that made her look like a Vestal, or a Christian angel ...




Manius tuus.