Chanting in an Ænglisc taberna

It is night in Monti (Subura). Massimo is at home before his computer screen

"20 minutes only and Deirdre would reach home" … So Massimo clicked the 'get mail' button on his Backtrack Linux box.

Giorgio's e-mail appeared on the screen.

ψ

"Ciao M,

The buds and the rest of the group are now in a marshy area the Anglo-Saxons call fani or fenne. I identified it as The Fens in East England, around the coast of the Wash where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire.

The Fens today. Click for attribution and to enlarge

The group is eating, drinking (and getting rid of dampness) in a village taberna crammed with local peasants. Their Latin is quite easy once you get used to their strange accent.

They look happy and finally relieved after a tormented journey.

As you will learn the ol' schoolmates are scions from Romano-Celtic clans from the West (Cadbury Hill and Castle, Somerset) and from the North (Banna, Birdoswald, at the west end of Hadrian's Wall), places where the language of Rome and Romanitas have survived though corrupted (or transfigured).

Greek is also fluent in many of them, uncommon in those days, together with their native Brittonic language of course which although terribly fascinating is as yet unintelligible to me.

Another landscape from The Fens area. Click for attribution

Their entrance into the taberna, if I may call it this way, had been unintentionally theatrical.

Despite their being dirty and exhausted they had appeared such an astonishing, colourful group to the country folks: the noble-breed friends (festive, attractive young men and women), Pavlos the Greek merchant, his mysterious ascendancy following him like a mantle, the refined (and provokingly dressed) Syrian ladies with their train of devoted female slaves and so forth.

Don't worry M, later I’ll describe all group members one by one (allow me to modernize their names in weird ways at first until my ears get used to their Celtic parlance).

Therefore, as soon as the taberna heavy main door had been opened for them to get in and while they were crossing its threshold, more than 200 pairs of eyes, ALL at the same time, couldn’t but stare at them totally wide-eyed.

Not that the group cared much. They were so ecstatic at the view of the large bronze braziers scattered here and there holding their wonderfully burning coals! Ahhh, it was as if blood were flowing again in their young bodies, grown numb by the cold.

A mid-20th century reconstruction of a Danish great hall and long house in Hobro, Denmark. Click for attribution and other examples of Anglo-Saxon-like buildings (450 CE to 1066)

Most unusually for a taberna, the place consisted [see image above] of a large timber long house that, to the local folk - a mixture of Angles and Celts coexisting peacefully? - served as a store house for farm produce, as tribunal, assembly, meeting and fun place (several cooks and servants were more than 'sociable' with generous customers), beer and eating house.

The powerful structure belonged to an earlier Celtic landlord - I overheard - who had been slaughtered together with all his family 50 years earlier during social unrest.

I checked in my books. It is time of migrations, M, of social change. Here in the East (but also in the West and the North) slaves revolting against (or refusing to work for) their landlords had caused the progressive decadence of big Roman-style villas and properties.

But while some scholars believe change had been far from dramatic and all had occurred almost drowsily, generation after generation, others instead, supported by a recent DNA research, think that some ethnic cleansing could have occurred.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that the Welsh could be the only true descendants of the Roman British since their genes seem entirely different. And secondly -
I am puzzled (and horrified) - chances are that between 50% and 100% of the Romanised population was totally wiped out Massimo.


Yes, it may have been so.

In any case.

In the year c. 420 CE - I learn -, a little more than one century before Manius' time (only yesterday I realized that my nightmares suggest Manius is living in 526 CE), there still "were people in Britain who had been born in a world shaped by the Romans", with Romano-Celtic material culture, mentality, Latin language. In 420 there were still "middle aged men and women who had been raised in heated villas" and whose "childhood dinners were served in pewter and glass", which can give an idea, I guess.

Model of a palatial Romano-British Villa at Fishbourne, West Sussex. Click for attribution and infos. Dug in the early 1960's the villa had ornate gardens, a large bath suite, mosaic floors, tessellated pavements, several guest suites, a spacious entrance-hall and even an audience chamber.

["15 minutes only and Deirdre would be home" Massimo thought with some nervousness]

Ah! His mentor had at last deduced the darn year of the strange Britannia events, something Massimo had grasped since the beginning. Giorgio's mind, it seemed clear, was not as sharp as it used to be - Massimo sadly reflected.

He resumed reading.]

ψ

"From c. 420 to c. 470 - Giorgio's narration continued - Germanic immigration in South East Britain had been like water dripping. Between 470 and a bit before 520 it had become a deluge, which was changing things very fast at least in the East of Britannia.

Soon after having kissed the sacred fatherland's soil the buddies had been progressively shocked by the extent of the cultural change occurring before their eyes. They had lived in Italy too long and their childhood memories of Britain were mainly from places that had retained a bit of the old world.

What was happening over there now, in the West and the North? And their families? And all their infancy friends? These were the fears that troubled the buddies' sleep since their first arrival in Albion land.
But now - youth smiling celestially, a warmed-up refuge, the food and the drink and the awareness of having escaped Neptune's wrath – both old and new friends drove away their preoccupations and gave vent to all their need to live.

Always resourceful Pavlos (his newly acquired servants had quick minds like his) making appear all sorts of music instruments - flutes, a Celtic harp, cymbals, a lyre and drums; the girls putting on their best make up (such ladies behaving so freely? You'll later learn why); not to mention the Syrian ἑταῖραι (hetaerae) or high class prostitutes if you will, being helped by their female slaves as well in order to appear more seductive then ever - ALL was soon ready for a sublime carousal the local folk would probably never forget. 

At the simple tinkling of a couple of gold solidi plenty of the 'real good stuff' - the one usually spared for important people - was in the meanwhile being served on their long table: savoury roasted game, an excellent dense ale, vegetables, idromele and fruits.

After an enchanting musical introduction from the Syrian hetaerae's languid flutes; from the strings of the melodious Celtic harp plucked with purest touch by sweet Chaerie’s delicate fingers; from pensive Pavlos' seven-stringed Greek lyre (a man who had wandered from clime to clime, "λύρα!" he had asked his servants; btw he and Chaerie proved to be excellent virtuosi); and finally with drums and cymbals providing the rhythm for the whole prelude ….

Now, dear M, read well my words: a ritual choral song among the most sublime ever conceived by man was about to vibrate in the air - something those simple peasants & warriors had probably never heard before.

Alicia Cundall playing a Celtic harp and singing. Click to enlarge and for attribution

It was first sung in Brittonic (to make sure a lot of them understood) and then in the Latin original.

(From the latter I could reconstruct the former, less concise but charming nonetheless)

At a signal (from Richardus and Qwil) the group's women blessed with the bloom of beauty slowly advanced towards the centre of the hall that had been cleared for the purpose.

(The Syrian ladies had preferred to remain at their table, busy with their flutes.)

ψ

Thus the female group began to chant:

Of Dian's praises, tender maidens, tell;
Well tell, tell well,
Oh tell, OOOOHH TTELLL!

(The last two words M were like a big female mystic cry!)

Now the men's turn, who had reached the girls (ALL the men except the slaves).

Exuding integrity the males thus continued the song:

Of Apollo’s charm, young striplings, sing;
Sing spring, spring sing,
Oh spring, OOOOHH SSIIIING!

(The last two words were this time like a powerful male mystic cry M!)


Finally both choirs - the women's and the men's, like fresh crop from the North, South & East combined - chanted in unison:

Of Latona their mother, oh sing
So beloved by our Heaven's King.
King, Lightning OOOOHH, FFLIIIING!

Oh God my friend (my words are so poor), this last two-word cry sung by both the men and the women was so majestic and piercing, was so hypnotizing and enchanting that all the audience lost control and stood up in a frenzy.

They reached such a state of confusion as if too much had been asked of them. They had never seen anything like that. Some began to sing, some to dance, some finally to hug and kiss (and insinuate intimate caresses with one another, the majority of both sexes being totally drunk).

Everyone, I mean, was so carried away by a madness which reached its climax when the choral song was rehearsed in Latin, a language still sacred to them although I'm sure not quite understood by most of the people who were crowding the huge hall.

(Btw M, no need to remind you that in the sacred Latin text below Apollo is named Cynthius after Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos where he was supposed to be born)

A Roman mosaic at Capua, Italy, with young kids as part of a sacred choir from the temple of Diana Tifatina. Click for attribution

Women (as pure as ever): 

Dianam tenerae dicite virgines

Men (as ethical as ever):

intonsum, pueri, dicite Cynthium

Men and women together (in all their chaste glory):

LATONAMQUE SUPREMO

DILECTAM PENITUS I-O-V-I-I-I!!

 ψ

[Massimo had tried to resist but was now vibrating. The whole scene had totally bewitched him.

Those Romano-Celtic youths, they were like angels!

With a pang he suddenly remembered his angel, how could he forget her? But, most of all, was she a real angel? 

"8 minutes more and Deirdre should be home" he thought. His anxiety was growing together with the sacred madness in Giorgio's tale] 

ψ

"The state of wildness reached by the peasants shocked the group of old and new friends - Giorgio's mail continued -. They had been so concentrating on their chant they hadn't realised what was actually happening within the walls of the huge building.

It all had been such a purification rite of joy, melodious and sober, but the public had interpreted it as excess, as mere intoxication. 

Well, nothing wrong with it, the friends' group liked intoxication as well (I overheard their comments). But they were confused since the reaction both in Italy and in the Britannic areas where they were born would have been quite different for such a rite: soul order, not disorder ...

This pure undebased song expressed by the words of Horace, Rome's sacred bard, words so cherished by any Roman pagan and respected at times even by the Christians (Richardus' and Philippus' words) ...

Germanic Jutes, Saxons and Angles are advancing from South East

They didn't mind much the peasants' reaction though. They kind of liked these Ænglisc, who probably needed to evolve, like the Romans, barbarians at first but then creators of the civilization they admired most and to which they felt they belonged.

The entire old and new friends' group was made of tolerant, open-minded youths who knew that what happened to mortals wasn't entirely controlled by the power of the gods.

That these Ænglisc were preparing a future for their fatherland, they deemed very unlikely and even the remotest idea of it troubled their heart.

But, they were disciplined Roman Celts, ready to face what the gods and Fate had preordained - and what the Christian deities eventually had preordained too (the Trinity and the Saints) - with brave hearts, pure souls and all their desire to live this life's joys - not the other life's joys - as much and as long as they could.

ψ

Now it is unfortunately time to relate, dear M, how a dark corner of the huge hall was also revealed to my deranged mind's eyes.

ψ

Sitting at a table, and drinking plain water, two black-clad monks (one with a hawk-like face) had been watching the whole performance attentively.

Their dark, circled eyes expressed deep, unquenchable hate.

Lords of Heaven and Hell

Two rival ancient Roman women. A Latin (left), a Romano-Celtic (right). Alma Tadema, 1893

Giorgio was bewildered. His dreams were turning into hallucinations, clear evidence of cerebral derangement, which hit him not only during sleep but also in the course of his most precious daily rite: his morning shower.

The bathtub space in his bathroom being too small (57x26 inches) he had opted for a large shower booth (instead of a small tub) which thanks to modern technology afforded a few of the conveniences an ancient Roman thermal bath (see the painting below) offered to those antique folks.

An ideal place for him to pursue gymnastics and meditation - his shower sessions of course seldom lasting less than 1 hour (to the consternation of his entire family).

Whatever he did (or wrote) during the day was nothing but the result of such start-of-day thermal occupation, it being well known how solutions pop up when we are relaxed rather than when we're actively striving for them.

A women's Roman thermal bath. Alma Tadema 1890

Now it turned - during one of the coldest days of 2011, while he naked and wet had just got out of his sacred booth, the heating off (and the bathroom window ajar) - he stopped as if he was struck by paralysis in the middle of the bathroom.

How long he had remained like that in that weird posture, he couldn't say. All he knew though was that his mind was flying, flying high over that peculiar and almost alien world: 6th century CE Britannia.

Piazza della Suburra in the Monti rione, once the crossroads of Subura

Two days later he called Massimo late at night. His ex-student was strolling in piazza della Suburra (see a daytime picture above), in ancient times the main crossroads of Rome's lower-class district, a role suppressed by the construction of Via Cavour at the end of the 1800s, a noisy arterial road that was like a wound (or a deep welt) on the flesh of the city's ancient heart.
 
Giorgio: "It's crazy! I later fell heavily over the washbasin and injured my right eyebrow which caused bleeding over the bathroom floor. If Flavia didn't arrive I would have caught pneumonia. I am brought to distraction Massimo. And as if my eerie night ghosts weren't enough, my head has been spinning in day time as well: at the table, in front of the TV and so on. Like a drunken stupor that scared Flavia to the extent that she called Francesco Ghini, you know, that shrink you also … after she..."

Massimo snapped: "Got it."

Giorgio: “Ok. And while glued to the TV following the Japanese nuclear tragedy, the living room started to spin like a merry-go-round and I collapsed on the sofa. Then I saw them again.”

Massimo's tone was casual: “The bunch of friends?”

Giorgio: “Them! A lot has happened since I last told you about these ... creatures from my imagination, this being my idea at present. As soon as I got back home from the hospital I sent you a fully-detailed e-mail about these Romano-Celtic - how they finally reached their destination and all. One thing, that Greek you know...”

Massimo's tone now had some weight: “The Greek called Pavols?”

Giorgio: “Hey, you're now taking my stuff seriously right when I'm thinking it's all mind chicanery? Yes, Pavlos who was standing on a strange mound towards sunrise, shrouded in the fog with birds trees and marshes all around, looking in the distance as it is his custom as if he had come from the seas and there he was bound to return, well, his Greek chlamys worn sideways-on with a clasp at the shoulder, he was surrounded by the buddies who seemed like a court around their enchanter.

The writer imagined this to be a sunrise on Britain's The Wash. Click for attribution and to enlarge

What a beautiful land! The men wore Roman tunics, and the women, I'll hide no detail, wore similar tunics so soaked with rain they adhered to their healthy young bodies.

The weirdest thing though, Pavlos kept repeating two sentences several times in his melodious language. Several times a Ma' !!"

Massimo began to shout to rouse some reaction from his Prof, his voice tone having though at the same time become more alert:

“ARE YOU NUTS PROF? What the hell did your darn Greek say ok? Will you lemme understand ok? Willya?”

Taken aback and needing a deep breath Giorgio finally said: “Ok a Ma'. Two sentences, that Pavlos pronounced clearly over and over, the buds repeating them as in a choir, or in a sort of Neoplatonic cabbala frenzy [the writer: I'll draw a veil on their mad dancing this time]."

Hermes Trismegistus, via Wikipedia

 The Greek thus well articulated:

“ὁ τού σώματος ὓπνοϛ τῆϛ ψυχῆς νῆψιϛ,

καὶ ἡ κάμμυσιϛ τῶν ὁφθαλμῶν ἀληθινὴ ὃρασις”

The overall meaning is not entirely clear to me:

the sleep, ὓπνοϛ, of the body, τού σώματος, now 'νῆψιϛ', well, escaping me... of the soul, τῆϛ ψυχῆς, and the shutting, κάμμυσιϛ, of eyes, τῶν ὁφθαλμῶν, the true, ἀληθινὴ, sight of the mind, ὃρασις”

Massimo: "νῆψις is a term used by Poimandres, a sort of intelligence attribute of God - thousands of years old Egyptian wisdom stuff. νῆψις means sobriety but in this context should signify sober watchfulness."

Never amazed enough by the way the pupil was getting progressively superior to the master, Giorgio had though an instant of perplexity: why Massimo was now into Hermetica? All he knew was that Massimo had gotten into the depths of Cybernetics, and was considering how Pythagoreanism could enter the equation a bit, but nothing more. He drove away like a mind shadow and exclaimed:

"Bravo. So what Pavlos said now makes more sense:

"The sleep of the body is the sober watchfulness of the soul; 

and the shutting of eyes the true Sight of the mind."

And right there he was hit by the same words he'd just said. His anxious silence was more eloquent than any word. 

Then Massimo, his voice colourless, uttered:

“Yes Prof, Pavlos appears to be warning you that the 'ghosts' you're (day) dreaming about are real people and no mind chicanery. More importantly, although so far totally incomprehensible, you seem to be the trait-d'union between two worlds ...”.

A weird pause followed.

The chatting (and rowdy) Romans filled the Monti streets with the clamour of youth. Roman streets & piazzas offer movida day and night but after 1-2 AM it's mostly the young who crowd bars squares and church steps.

“I want you to know, - Massimo resumed the conversation - that it is a few days now that I got 'interested' in your … problems. Btw, I saw her again at Finnegan's you know (see picture below), that Welsh-Irish cutie I told you about, her name's Deirdre.”

"The Nordic wench you met in a chat room? A Celtic? Why are you telling me this right now ..."

“She unfortunately .... No time to explain! - Massimo snapped - Gotta rush home, Ciao Gio'.”

ψ

Switching off his phone and hurrying along the via Leonina (see the satellite view below) he reached his apartment on the third floor of the central building in piazza Madonna dei Monti, civic 6 (see picture following the satellite one). After rummaging through his pockets and finally succeeding in opening his apartment door he rushed to his Linux box and switched it on.

Massimo's Suburra. Click to zoom into Massimo's world.  Disclaimer: Massimo
(and Giorgio) are fictitious characters. Altho the Finnegan exists Massimo being a ghost from MoR's
mind how could he live in the bulding indicated in the Piazza above, in rione Monti Google maps?

He needed his faithful companion, Backtrack Linux, to make a few checks. He knew what he was doing wasn't right but the stakes were too great. Such a sophisticated weapon, totally free and a real must for top computer jocks, deep in his heart he hoped it wasn't about to uncover what would have aborted the tiny buds of hope in the context of an after all contemptible life.

When he was with Deirdre at the pub, after an hour of sheer delight and deep emotional exchange, he had been chilled by a couple of sentences she'd said.

The inner purity of her soul seemed beyond any mendacity, and she was so terribly attractive, her tight jeans showing perfect curves and long, well shaped legs. But it was that angelic face of hers (God and gods!), so pale blue-green-eyed & freckled and expressing like an exotic blend of the mystical, the sensual and the innocent - something he absolutely had no defence against.

Massimo's building is central in piazza Madonna dei Monti

All had happened so fast. He had found her in an IRC chat room a little more than a week ago. She typed very slowly for an English-mother tongue person, he had thought, but her words had an ol' time patina. Soon after they had met twice at Finnegan's, the Irish pub located at the Salita dei Borgia (have a look here).

Like most things in down town Rome the Salita underpassing the so-called Borgia palace corresponded to vicus sceleratus (or 'wicked street') so named since the time (535 BCE) when Tullia - the Roman king Servius Tullius' perfidious daughter and future (and forever cursed!) last Queen of Rome -  had driven her chariot right over her father's body on that very road.

"Lords of Heaven and Hell!" Massimo was now praying (& cursing) in the deep of his soul.

(Tullia and his ex wife Giulia at one end were now one in his imagination; mysterious  - and dangerous? - Deirdre being instead at the other end of that long line that separates / connects good and evil).

This Subura thing - he thought - and his whole new life since he'd been dumped - all now appeared to him so funereal and gloomy.

Linux Backtrack 4 R2. A dark, powerful jewel in the hands of a good hacker

He then thought about Giorgio. Once a solid structure he was about to disintegrate to the point that he didn't recognize him any more. Not that Giorgio didn't have reasons to suffer a break down. "Something is brewing" he had once said. But what? He felt a pang in his heart. All he knew was that he owed him so much, he having been like a father after all to him.

Massimo's ideas had started fermenting the day he had met his Prof lecturing a group of students in the Forum Romanum.

It was a rainy day. Rome is so smelly when it rains. Giorgio was younger and Massimo was terribly hit by Giorgio's passion and clarity. After that crucial encounter which happened 15 years ago, the Prof had become his mentor and special friend. He basically passed unto him this love, hard to phrase it, this hedonistic craving for knowledge that had never since abandoned his soul and which comforted him in all his sorrows.

The thought went again to Giulia, that self-centred, ambitious slut who had dumped him since she deemed him a loser (and probably she was right).

ψ

Loser or not, he felt it was high time to help his Prof now that he was sinking. Well, now that they were both sinking.

A sudden wave of energy pervaded Massimo, once a great soccer player, now a nobody. His name meant 'the greatest' in Latin. Ok, not the greatest of course, but finished, ah not yet, he having not many doubts about it either.

ψ

He started his trace GSM locations software on his Backtrack box and soon realised Deirdre would be home in no less than 20 minutes.

He had all his good time to calmly read Giorgio's mail on that crazy bunch that had just landed in Albion, the land of faeries (and of rebel queens).

He began reading, his mind focusing, sharper than ever.

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.

The seven wives legend is not true

[Britannia, 526 CE, in a parallel (and almost identical) universe]

Manius Quinto sal.

[...] As soon as I can, dear Quintus, I will tell you exactly where my tower is located here in Britannia - all I know it is somewhere in the East of the island - so that you can send me all possible information about the area.

Since you’re living in Northern Gaul I remember you saying you know quite a lot about Britannia and that you also possess detailed maps that can be copied and sent to me as soon as I tell you where I am.

The Franks – you told me - show mercy unto you because of your knowledge and writing skills. They will not object to your sending a parcel to an old friend.

One more thing. That weird legend about a certain Manius Papirius Lentulus, whom you say to be the talk of your village ...ahhh, hercle, a clear case of homonymy! Or a stupid mistake!

Our clan, the Papirii, is very large. Besides people write (and mispronounce) so horribly in our days.

I swear to our gods that I haven't married seven Anglia women.

Oh oh oh, I wish I had, but how? I've been here for only a few months. The sad truth is that I am terribly alone in my tower and that I badly miss the warm body of a woman in my bed.

This attached papyrus informs you about the local version of that legend. Please do not propagate such stupidities.

[…]

Manius Papirius Lentulus

Sheep in the English countryside. Credits

Britannia, 526 CE, in a parallel (and almost identical) universe.

Angles, Saxons and Jutes are invading the Roman province of Britannia from the South-East. All continental Roman soldiers have left – but the Romano-Celtic in the West are resisting bravely. Only Manius Papirius Lentulus from Roma has stayed. He’s with the barbarians but he risks nothing because he's considered innocuous by the Angles (or Angli as he says in his language.)

In such a green but rainy land he doesn't only meet the locals but also strange people from other nations.

Manius being reserved (and living in a tower) prefers to communicate via wax tablets that he sends to every corner of Britannia and of the big world.

This blog will present the content of Manius' letters (along with other fun stuff).