Gitana

“ The picture of the Gitana of Seville hands on some of its own power to the quieter pages, and at length, with a score of other achievements of the same solid kind, kindles well-nigh every part of the shapeless book. I shall quote it at length:
“If there be one being in the world who, more than another, deserves the title of sorceress (and where do you find a word of greater romance and more thrilling interest?) , it is the Gypsy female in the prime and vigour of her age and ripeness of her understanding—the Gipsy wife, the mother of two or three children. ”

“ My great grandame was no common Gitana. Her husband had been a chief, or count, among the gipsies, during his entire manhood. This was no common dignity, for our people choose their own leaders, and it is seldom that one man’s popularity lasts during a life-time. The Gitano chooses his wife for her talent, her art, her powers of deception ”

“ However that may be, it is certain that the gitana shows the most extraordinary devotion to her husband. There is no danger and no suffering she will not brave, to help him in his need. One of the names which the gipsies apply to themselves, Rome, or “the married couple,” seems to me a proof of their racial respect for the married state. ”

“ No females in the world can be more licentious in word and gesture, in dance and in song, than the Gitánas; but there they stop: and so of old, if their titled visitors presumed to seek for more, an unsheathed dagger or gleaming knife speedily repulsed those who expected that the gem most dear amongst the sect of the Roma was within the reach of a Busno.
Such visitors, however, were always encouraged to a certain point, and by this and various other means the Gitános acquired connections which frequently stood them in good stead in the hour of need. ”

“ But the pretty Gitana of the stage is altogether a different sort of being from the brown-faced, elf-locked, and tawdrily dressed female who haunts back entries with the ostensible object of selling clothes-pegs, but with the real motive of picking up whatever may be lying in her way. There is but small chance of Bohemian Girls finding themselves in drawing-rooms nowadays. The last experiment of the kind was made by the writer of a charming book on the Gipsies, who was so fascinated by one of their number that he married her ”

“ M. Borrow, an English missionary, the author of two very interesting works on the gypsies of Spain, whom he had undertaken to convert at the expense of the Bible Society, asserts that there is no [Pg 124] known instance of a gitana having a weakness for a man not of her race. It seems to me that there is much exaggeration in the eulogium which he bestows on their chastity. In the first place, the great majority of them are in the plight of Ovid’s ugly woman: Casta quam nemo rogavit. As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women, exacting in the choice of their lovers. ”

“ A Spaniard very rarely indeed marries a Gitana, or female gypsy. But occasionally (observes Mr. Borrow) a wealthy Gitano marries a Spanish female.
CHAPTER IV. The Preceptor.
Roland removed to France, and fixed his abode in the environs of Paris. He placed Blanche at a convent in the immediate neighborhood, going to see her daily, and gave himself up to the education of his son. The boy was apt to learn ”

“ Probably in no country does man, in the humbler walks of life, appear so universally clothed with the majesty suitable to his rank as lord of the creation, as he does in Spain. As they travelled through Castile, the scene was occasionally varied by meeting a band of strolling Gitanas, or Gipsies, whose swarthy hue, slender forms, and wild appearance, clearly pointed out their foreign origin; of course, they were anxious to tell the fortunes of the beautiful Señoritas, and on one occasion their father consented to gratify their curiosity. ”

“ It is one thing to be a procuress, and another to be a harlot, though the former has assuredly no reason to complain if she be confounded with the latter. ‘The Gitánas,’ says Doctor Sancho de Moncada, in his discourse concerning the Gypsies, which I shall presently lay before the reader, ‘are public harlots, common, as it is said, to all the Gitános, and with dances, demeanour, and filthy songs, are the cause of infinite harm to the souls of the vassals of your Majesty (Philip III.) , as it is notorious what infinite harm they have caused in many honourable houses. ”

“ Certainly Gitános and Gitánas confessed before Don Martin Fajardo that they did not really marry, but that in their banquets and festivals they selected the woman whom they liked, and that it was lawful for them to have as many as three mistresses, and on that account they begat so many children. They never keep fasts nor any ecclesiastical command. They always eat meat, Friday and Lent not excepted; the morning when I seized those whom I afterwards executed, which was in Lent, they had three lambs which they intended to eat for their dinner that day.—Quiñones, page 13. ”

“ It is still more difficult to say what is the peculiar dress of the Gitánas; they wear not the large red cloaks and immense bonnets of coarse beaver which distinguish their sisters of England; they have no other headgear than a handkerchief, which is occasionally resorted to as a defence against the severity of the weather; their hair is sometimes confined by a comb, but more frequently is permitted to stray dishevelled down their shoulders ”

“ The Gitano, or gypsy of Spain, is not the mere vagrant we see on our commons and road-sides. Retaining, indeed, much of his lawless principles and predatory inclinations, he lives often in towns, exercises various callings, and not unfrequently becomes rich. A wealthy Gitano had married a Spanish woman; (1) Roland’s wife had been the offspring of this marriage. The Gitano had died while Ramouna was yet extremely young, and her childhood had been free from the influences of her paternal kindred. ”

“ The Gitano girl’s beauty had made her known to the people who lived nearby but they had not seen her for more than a year, and the neighboring gypsies had moved away, no one knew where. I am not much given to regrets, being content to let my destiny work itself out free from senseless protests, yet if my wishes had been consulted I would not have lost my glorious Gitano girl. Possibly the ruined cottage symbolized a love that had burned itself out or it may be that somewhere her spirit is waiting for mine. “Why?” and “When?” are questions that I never attempt to answer. ”

“ John with his arms extended Giotto has preserved the antique gesture of sorrow. Angels wheel and circle through the air in a frenzied agony of grief. In the background a barren hill and the leafless branches of a tree are relieved against a darkening sky.
'The Resurrection,' Plate VI, shows us the soldiers in deep sleep beside the red porphyry tomb on which two majestic, white-robed angels are seated. Mary Magdalene, in a long crimson cloak, kneels with outstretched arms at the feet of the risen Christ, who by his expressive gesture warns her, "Noli me tangere!" ”

“ Among Giotto's most famous works are the four frescos which cover the arched compartments of the vaulting of the Lower Church of St. Francis at Assisi. One represents the saint enthroned in glory; the others are allegorical depictions of the three vows of the Franciscan Order,—Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. The finest of the series is that reproduced in this plate, in which Giotto has represented the mystic marriage of St. Francis with Poverty. Hope and Love are the bridesmaids, angels are the witnesses, and Christ himself blesses the union. ”

“ If one can see their work aright, it is beautiful; but it has lost touch with life, or is a mere satirical comment upon it, that Giotto, with his simplicity, his eager delight in natural things and in man, will supersede and banish. In him, Europe seems to shake off the art and fatality of the East, under whose shadow Christianity had grown up, to be altogether transformed and humanised by Rome, when she at the head really of humanism and art should once more give to the world the thoughts and life of another people full of joy and temperance—things so hard for the Christian to understand. ”

“ These he made living,—Florence asked no more: and "Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo."
But Giotto came from the field, and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted—the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,—yes, by all means if you choose to call them so, but essentially,—Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap,—"Ora ha Giotto il grido."
For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet incident of human nature; and makes dear to daily life every mystic imagination of natures greater than our own. ”

“ The earlier Byzantine and Roman workers in mosaic had bequeathed to him the high abstract qualities of their practice—their balance, their impressiveness, their grand instinct of decoration; but while they had compassed these qualities at an entire sacrifice of life and animation, it is the glory of Giotto to have been the first among his countrymen to breathe life into art, and to have quickened its stately rigidity with the fire of natural incident and emotion. ”

“ Not far away up the hillside, in cave-dwellings amidst an almost impenetrable thicket of prickly pears, live the gitanos. I fear they now exist on the charity of the tourist, and make a peseta or two by fortune-telling or in the exercise of a more reprehensible cleverness, a light-fingered dexterity which is generally only discovered by those who "must go to the gipsy quarter" on their return to the hotel. These gipsies no longer wander in the summer months and lie up for the winter as they did of yore. They are not the Romanies of old times, and a nomadic life holds no charm for them now. ”

“ But the principal group of people are seen outside an exquisite basilica of marble and mosaic, and each figure can be studied with pleasure as they have not been mutilated by the "restorer's" usual layers of thick paint. Seldom has Giotto painted lovelier women than those kneeling in the foreground, their profiles of delicate and pure outline recalling a border of white flowers. Near them is a figure bearing so strong a resemblance to Dante, that we would fain believe that Giotto meant to represent the type of a true Florentine in a portrait of the poet. ”

“ It fell, soft and brilliant and caressing, on the frescoes of Giotto. They were as pure and fresh and holy as the very lilies; and as the lilies revealed the innermost meanings of Sant' Antonio's Day to the hearts of the worshippers, so the frescoes symbolized the deepest reverence, the hidden longing of the whole brilliant, noisy Middle Age life of Padua. Their very crudeness, their nakedness, their barrenness of accessory, their sharp, brilliant coloring, cause them to stand out in strong relief. Never did the mystery of Holy Writ receive better interpretation than at the hands of Giotto. ”

“ The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir as bravely as he could; would fain go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced to shield his face, though he has not turned back. Giotto gives him full sweeping breadth of fold; what dignity he can;—a man faithful to his profession, at all events.
The next one has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him, in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness of fold. ”

“ Eager to propitiate the tutelary genius with our wretched blood, the savage sailors rushed upon us with their rope's ends. For my part, I endured three lashes with Spartan fortitude, but at the very first blow, Giton set up such a howling that his all too familiar voice reached the ears of Tryphaena; nor was she the only one who was in a flutter, for, attracted by this familiar voice, all the maids rushed to where he was being flogged. Giton had already moderated the ardor of the sailors by his wonderful beauty, he appealed to his torturers without uttering a word. "It's Giton! It's Giton!" ”

“ And what more is left for his favourite shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, except to paint with ever-increasing skill? We fancy he only surpassed Cimabue—eclipsed by greater brightness.
Not so. The sudden and new applause of Italy would never have been won by mere increase of the already-kindled light. Giotto had wholly another work to do. The meeting of the Norman race with the Byzantine is not merely that of action with repose—not merely that of war with religion,—it is the meeting of domestic life with monastic, and of practical household sense with unpractical Desert insanity. ”

“ The great reality of Giotto's designs adds to the helpless wonderment with which we feel the passionate pluck of the Hero, the sense of being separated from it by an impassable gulf, the reflection on all that has come and gone to make morality at that vertiginous pitch impossible. There are no such high places of humility left to climb to. An observant friend who has lived long in Italy lately declared to me, however, that she detested the name of this moralist, deeming him chief propagator of the Italian vice most trying to the would-be lover of the people, the want of personal self-respect. ”

“ How real too would seem the old story of the meeting of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate, when they could gaze upon the two homely figures under the narrow gateway. No visionary saints these, but just a simple husband and wife, meeting each other with joy after a sad separation, and yet with the touch of heavenly meaning shown by the angel who hovers above and places a hand upon each head.
It was not only in Florence that Giotto did his work. His fame spread far and wide, and he went from town to town eagerly welcomed by all. ”