Olimpia

“ Before the high altar of the latter is Olimpia’s tomb, providently placed in her lifetime, with, I thought, a rather touching inscription, saying that she had really tried to do all the good she could; and in the palace are her full-length portrait and furniture of her time, and two pictures of Innocent X. The great cool halls are let in the summer months, and have, oh! such a view from their terrace; while close behind the palace is another gate of the walled town, from which glorious forest—the great Ciminian oak forest—begins at once, and stretches away to infinity. ”

“ Olimpia laughed. "I love him as much as you do, I dare swear," said she; "but he may be very useful. Remember that I am but a poor gentlewoman with my fortune to make."
"Give me the making of it, my angel," cried the Captain, crushing his heart with his fist. "You shall have the most crowded cortile in Ferrara. May I give you a humble bit of advice?"
"Certainly you may."
"It will be this, then, that you hold off from Monna Nanna and keep yourself very much to yourself. Between us we can arrange a pretty future. I know Monna Nanna better than becomes me. ”

“ But though she has a wonderful free spirit, she is no beauty, you must know. Her mouth is too big, and her eyes are too small. It is a kissing mouth, as we say, my dear, and a speaking eye—and there you have Madama Lionella, who loves minstrels."
"Tell me," said Olimpia here, "who is that pretty gentleman with my friend? Is he not a minstrel?" ”

“ There were numerous varieties, but none have survived except the feminine Olympias, belonging to the proud but much beloved mother of Alexander, and, like all other Macedonian names, spreading through the East. A Byzantine widow, of great piety and charity, who stood faithful to St. Chrysostom during his persecution by the empress, was canonized, and sent Olympias on to be a favourite with the Greeks, so that it flourishes among all ranks in the Ionian Islands. Italy had her Olimpia, probably through the Greek connections of Venice ”

“ Alas! she said——” “Always a poetess, Signorina Olimpia!” cried the Provost, “always a poetess! Are those your own verses, madam, are they yours?”
“Come now, Olimpia, out with it, before it is too late,” urged Sor Cosimo. “The sonnet to Calamai—we must have that at once, for it’s a beauty!” ”

“ The hubbub of the inn-yard, where shouting merchants wrestled for porters, and donkeys brayed them down, the narrowed eyes of Olimpia, the sardonic grin of the gaunt Mosca, brought our lovers back into the real world. They faced their foes together with insensible meeting and holding of young hands. Angioletto did his best not to feel a detected schoolboy, and did succeed in meeting the Captain's terrific looks. Bellaroba made no attempt at heroism. ”

“ I have always understood that encounters before ladies are make-believe; but your experience should inform you how far that is true. By leave, Signor Capitano."
Whereupon he lifts up the praying Bellaroba, kisses her forehead, and hands her into the inn as bold as a Viscount. One or two tongues were in one or two cheeks; one hand at least clapped him on the shoulder for a "little assassin"—a compliment: the honours were his to that present. Olimpia followed after him, very much impressed with the thought that the sooner she could exchange Mosca for Mosca's master the better for her. ”

“ The flaxen lad in silver brocade, who was on the other side, is Teofilo Calcagnini, of whom I know little more than that he is Duke Borso's shadow. You shall hardly see them apart. The other, my charmer, the other is our man. Leave me to deal with him. Come now to the inn. To-morrow you shall have your hired house, and the next day company for it more to your taste than lean old Mosca."
"I shall never forget you, my Captain," said the really grateful Olimpia; and said truer than she knew. "Come," she added, "we should seek out Bellaroba and her little sweetheart. ”

“ Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of that cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping child, palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the chariots. All the glory of men has departed, but something remains which is better than glory—peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of lasting things beyond. ”

“ Olympia sat lonely and deserted by her river banks. Summer winds whirled dust under her porches. Rabbits made burrows in Zeus' altar. Doors rusted off their hinges. Foxes made their dens in Hera's temple. Men came now and then to melt up a bronze statue for swords or to haul away the stones of her temples for building. The Alpheios kept eating away its banks and cutting under statues and monuments. Many a beautiful thing crumbled and fell into the river and was rolled on down to the sea. Men sometimes found a bronze helmet or a marble head in the bed of the stream. ”

“ Olympia, when the German diggers have fled before the heat of a Greek summer, when they have left all the statues and other beautiful things that they have found sealed up against all men, Greek and barbarian, may seem to be, even literally, Olympia with the spring taken out of its year. But Olympia can, for all general historical purposes, be Olympia without them; some minds may not greatly regret their absence. To some minds galleries, museums, collections of all kinds, are simply wearisome. ”

“ Olympia itself is forgotten. Who is the spectacle of the day? Themistocles, the conqueror of Salamis, and the saviour of Greece! Again—the huzzas of countless thousands following the chariot-wheels of the competitors—whose name is shouted forth, the victor without a rival!—it is Alcibiades, the destroyer of Athens! Turn to the temple of the Olympian god, pass the brazen gates, proceed through the columned aisles 121, what arrests the awe and wonder of the crowd! ”

“ A magnificent temple at Olympia, on the Peloponnesus, was also dedicated to Jupiter; and here every fifth year the people of Greece were wont to assemble to celebrate games, in honor of Jupiter’s great victory over the Titans. These festivals were known as the Olympian Games; and the Greeks generally reckoned time by olympiads, that is to say, by the space of time between the celebrations. Within the temple at Olympia stood a wonderful statue of gold and ivory, the work of Phidias. ”

“ If the expected succor should arrive—if the good cause should triumph here in Alexandria—if the rising were to be general throughout Greek heathendom, then indeed had he been rightly named Olympius by his parents—then he would not change places with any god of Olympus—then the glory of his name, more lasting than bronze or marble, would shine forth like the sun, so long as one Greek heart honored the ancient gods and loved its native land. ”

“ Of all the many little collections in Greece, that in Olympia is doubtless the best, and it is fittingly housed in a building in the classic style, given by a patriotic Greek, M. Syngros. Aside from the artistic remnants, there are a number of relics bearing on the athletic aspect of Olympia—its chief side, of course. And among these are some ancient discs of metal and stone, and a huge rock which bears an inscription relating that a certain strong man of ancient times was able to lift it over his head and to toss it a stated distance. ”

“ After the terrible night of the middle-age, and the dolorous legends of spirits and the damned, it was a delight to see again Olympus shining upon us from Greece; its heroic and beautiful deities once more ravishing the heart of men, they raised and instructed this young world by speaking to it the language of passion and genius; and the age of strong deeds, free sensuality, bold invention, had only to follow its own bent, in order to discover in them the eternal promoters of liberty and beauty. Nearer still was another paganism, that of Italy ”

“ Thirty or more there were—Apollo, Zeus, heroes, women, centaurs, horses. Arms were gone, heads were broken, legs were lost. The excavators fitted together all the pieces and set the mended statues up side by side as they had been in the gable. They found, too, the carved marble slabs that showed the labors of Herakles. But even these were not the lovely things that people had hoped to see from Olympia. They were rather stiff and ungraceful. They had not been made by the greatest artists. In the temple of Hera one day men were digging in clay. Over all the rest of Olympia was only sand. ”

“ The river Alphe'us, which the poets have made the most celebrated of the rivers of Greece, flows westward through Elis to the Ionian Sea, and on its banks was Olympia, the renowned seat of the Olympian games. Here, also, was the sacred grove of olive and plane trees, within which were temples, monuments, and statues, erected in honor of gods, heroes, and conquerors. In the very midst stood the great temple of Jupiter, which contained the colossal gold and ivory statue of the god, the masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias. ”

“ Now the full moon had risen, and the world was swimming in silver light. The statue of Victory hung over the sacred place on spread wings. Many another great form on its high pillar seemed standing in the deep sky above the world. The little pool in the pebbly river had stars in the bottom.
“This Kladeos is a savage little river in the spring,” said Glaucon. “It tries to tear away our Olympia or drown it or cover it with sand. You see, men have had to fence it in with stone walls.”
But Charmides was looking at the sacred place and its soft shining statues in the sky. ”

“ At Olympia itself the new green of the trees and grass, the pink of the almond blossoms on the banks of the Alpheus, and all the awakening of the early spring help to dissipate the melancholy that is wont to invade the mind in a lonely site amidst ruins which record some by-gone efflorescence of human activity. This Olympian plain, through which the Alpheus sweeps down to the sea between fields and vineyards, offered ample room for the vast throngs of visitors. There was no city accommodation. They must encamp in the open as they do to-day at many a modern festival. ”

“ Creon was led home wearing Zeus’ wreath upon his head, and Charmides with Apollo’s crown in his heart. [Illustration: A Coin of Alexander the Great. It shows Zeus sitting on his throne.]
HOW A CITY WAS LOST
Such was Olympia long ago. Every four years such games took place. Then the plain was crowded and busy and gay. Year after year new statues were set up, new gifts were brought, new buildings were made. Olympia was one of the richest places in the world. Its fame flew to every land. At every festival new people came to see its beauties. It was the meeting place of the world. ”

“ The area known as Olympia is bounded on the west by the Cladeus, on the south by the Alpheus, on the north by the low heights which shut in the Alpheus valley, and on the east by the ancient racecourses. One group of the northern heights terminates in a conical hill, about 400 ft. high, which is cut off from the rest by a deep cleft, and descends abruptly on Olympia. This hill is the famous Cronion, sacred to Cronus, the father of Zeus.
The natural situation of Olympia is, in one sense, of great beauty. ”

“ No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would love. It would make the name of Olympia famous again. The excavators were proud and happy. That old ruined temple seemed indeed a sacred place to them as they gazed upon perhaps the most beautiful statue in the world.
"Surely we shall find nothing else so perfect," they said. ”

“ From the hand of wrathful Jupiter fierce thunderbolts were hurled, while the lightning flashed and gleamed through the darkness of the forest, searching out the guilty mortal who had dared to climb too high.
No human eye had ever seen the glories of Olympus, no human foot had ever stepped within its sacred halls, where the ceiling was of gold and the pavement of pearl and the thrones of the gods shone with a thousand glittering jewels. ”

“ Next day he set out for home; and the people from the isles and colonies, and all the states of Greece, departed, and the Olympic vale became once more the quiet habitation only of the gods and their attendants.
He went back much in the same array as that in which he came, but with an added glory. He had come as a competitor, he returned a victor. Seated in his chariot, dressed in purple, the wild olive wreath upon his head, he entered Athens. If he had been a god, indeed, descending from Olympos, he could hardly have been more rapturously received. The city in one mass came out to meet him. ”

“ The keen demand for athletic statuary, the honour attached to the artist employed to make his statue at Olympia, or at home, bear witness again to the pride with which a Greek town, the pathos, it might be, with which a family, looked back to the victory of one of its members. In the courts of Olympia a whole population in marble and bronze gathered quickly,—a world of portraits, out of which, as the purged and perfected essence, the ideal soul, of them, emerged the Diadumenus, for instance, the Discobolus, the so-called Jason of the Louvre. ”