Gitano

“ 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. ”

“ Es mucho hombre. There is none like him in Spain. He speaks the crabbed Gitano though he is an Inglesito.”
“We do not believe it,” replied several grave voices. “It is not possible.”
“It is not possible, say you? I tell you it is. Come forward, Balseiro, you who have been in prison all your life, and are always boasting that you can speak the crabbed Gitano, though I say you know nothing of it—come forward and speak to his worship in the crabbed Gitano.” ”

“ As regards the Gipsies of Spain, Dr. Bright remarks: That the disposition of the Gitano is more inclined to a fixed residence than that of the Gipsy of other countries, is beyond doubt. The generality are the settled inhabitants of considerable towns, and, although the occupations of some necessarily lead them to a more vagrant life, the proportion is small who do not consider some hovel in a suburb as a home. ‘Money is in the city—not in the country,’ is a saying frequently in their mouths. ”

“ And well and truly do the coplas and gachaplas of the Gitános depict the character of the race. This poetry, for poetry we will call it, is in most respects such as might be expected to originate among people of their class; a set of Thugs, subsisting by cheating and villainy of every description; hating the rest of the human species, and bound to each other by the bonds of common origin, language, and pursuits. The general themes of this poetry are the various incidents of Gitáno life and the feelings of the Gitános. ”

“ Yonder, jabbering their Egyptian gibberish, is a party of Zingali: the worst punishment to them is to have a roof over their heads; the Gitano would rather lie in a ditch than a palace, boil his kettle under a hedge than feast at the governor's table. To the left there, señor, are smugglers from Cadiz; many a contraband bale has galled the backs of their mules as they moved over the sierra by moonlight. He in the red faja behind them is a highly respectable man ”

“ I know not how this superstition took birth; but the craft of our Gitana ancestress seemed to descend with the rings, as they came down from that wonderful creature, always through the females, to the old Sibyl who was the grandame of my mother.
I know that the Gitanos are considered as impostors; that they are supposed to practise their arts for coarse gain, and for that only; but this is not always true. No devotee ever put more faith in her saint than the gipsy, who has long exercised her powers of divination, places in the truth of her mysterious art. ”

“ I can well understand that such procedure, on the part of the Spanish [386] Government, was calculated to soften the ferocious disposition of the Gipsies; but did it bring them a point nearer to an amalgamation with the people than before? Mr. Borrow continues: “The position which they occupy is the lowest. . . . . The outcast of the prison and the presidio, who calls himself Spaniard, would feel insulted by being termed Gitano, and would thank God that he is not.” He continues: “It is, of course, by intermarriage, alone, that the two races will ever commingle ”

“ First Gypsy.—‘In the summer time a few of us assemble together, and live about amongst the plains and hills, and by doing so we frequently contrive to pick up a horse or a mule for nothing, and sometimes we knock down a Busné, and strip him, but it is seldom we venture so far. We are much looked after by the Busné, who hold us in great dread, and abhor us. Sometimes, when wandering about, we are attacked by the labourers, and then we defend ourselves as well as we can. There is no better weapon in the hands of a Gitáno than his “cachas,” or shears, with which he trims the mules. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This people are called Gitanos, a Spanish word which signifies Egyptians. There are many Gitanos in Catalonia, who have similar habits to the above-mentioned, but who are very strictly watched. They have all the vices of those Egyptians, or Bohemians, who formerly used to wander over the world, telling fortunes, and living at the expense of superstition and credulity. These Gitanos, less idle and less wanderers than their predecessors, are afraid of publicly professing the art of fortune-tellers; but their manner of life is scarcely different. ”

“ Paco, the Gypsy of Badajoz, attributed his ruin to the extravagance of his marriage festival; and many other Gitános have confessed the same thing of themselves. They said that throughout the three days they appeared to be under the influence of infatuation, having no other wish or thought but to make away with their substance; some have gone so far as to cast money by handfuls into the street. Throughout the three days all the doors are kept open, and all corners, whether Gypsies or Busné, welcomed with a hospitality which knows no bounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Gitanos at once detected that he was suffering from the malady in one of its acutest forms. No man should ever doctor himself; he cannot diagnose properly; it is as unwise as to be one’s own lawyer. It was remarked that he had lost his gaiety, was absorbed in his own thoughts, and spoke often abstractedly, sighed frequently, and had a “far-off look” about his eyes which showed them that his heart was not at Granada.
These acute observers knew all about the beautiful Englishwoman who had met their friend, and the guide told them a good deal of his own impressions on the matter. ”

“ They talk the languages of the north and the east willingly and easily, but with difficulty those of the south.
The gipsies who are to be found in Spain, Languedoc, Provence and parts of Italy call themselves Gitanos or Gitans. These are they who come once at least during their life wanderings to Saintes-Maries, "to salute the earth, to fulfil strange rites, and to regard the sea, their eyes fixed in ecstasy." Where do they come from?
"From the parts where the sun sets," they say of themselves ”

“ Borrow approvingly quotes, ‘will turn the Gipsy white;’) much must be forgotten on both sides, and everything is forgotten in course of time.” So great, indeed, was the prejudice against the Gipsies, that the law of Charles III, in 1783, forbade the people calling them Gitanos, under the penalty of being punished for slander! because, his majesty said: “I declare that those who go by the name of Gitanos are not so by origin or nature; nor do they proceed from any infected root (!) ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Giotto spoke clearly and to the point. This shepherd boy, whose mountain pastures could be seen from her Campanile, taught grammar to the halting art of Florence. He taught the muse of the fourteenth century to wear the buskin, so that his followers, however confused their composition might be, were at least clear in the telling of their story. Indeed he was such a dramaturgist that men for a full hundred years forgot, in the fascination of the story told, to ask that the puppets should be any more shapely, that they should look one whit more like men and women. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was this conquest, this touch of the magician, this striking of the sympathetic notes of life and reality, that chiefly gave Giotto his immense reputation among his contemporaries, and made him the fit exponent of the vivid, penetrating, and practical genius of emancipated Florence. His is one of the few names in history which, having become great while its bearer lived, has sustained no loss of greatness through subsequent generations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the other great Italian colourists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also its brightness. And none of the others, except Tintoret, understood to the full its symbolic power; but with those—Giotto and Tintoret—there is always, not only a colour harmony, but a colour secret. It is not merely to make the picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis preaches to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto covers the wall with purple and scarlet;—and above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry father is dressed in red, varying like passion ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ghirlandajo's St. Anne (I ought to have told you to notice that,—you can afterwards) is sitting strongly up in bed, watching, if not directing, all that is going on. Giotto's lying down on the pillow, leans her face on her hand; partly exhausted, partly in deep thought. She knows that all will be well done for the child, either by the servants, or God; she need not look after anything. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And in any light, unless you understand the relations of Giotto to St. Francis, and of St. Francis to humanity, it will be of little interest.
Observe, then, the special character of Giotto among the great painters of Italy is his being a practical person. Whatever other men dreamed of, he did. He could work in mosaic; he could work in marble; he could paint; and he could build; and all thoroughly: a man of supreme faculty, supreme common sense. Accordingly, he ranges himself at once among the disciples of the Apostle of Works, and spends most of his time in the same apostleship. ”