Cicisbeo

“ I extremely condemn those, who are enslaved by their passions, and bring a public disgrace on their families by suffering themselves to be detected; such are justly our scorn and ridicule; and you may observe they are not taken notice of by any body. There is a decency to be observed in our amours; and I shall be very ready to offer you my advice, as you are young and inexperienced. One thing let me tell you; never admit your Cicisbeo to an unlimited familiarity; they are first suspected. Never take notice of your favourite before other people ”

“ Ten thousand prisoners fell into his hands, including many hostages of Spanish tribes left as pledges to Hannibal and Hasdrubal for the fidelity of native soldiers. These, by a conciliatory policy, Scipio soon secured as allies, and with their aid eventually drove the last of the Carthaginians out of the peninsula. The last city to fall was Cadiz, in b.c. 206, and in 205 Scipio returned to Rome, and was elected consul in recognition of his great achievements. ”

“ Consciously pretty, and prettily conscious in her white-starched, rose-sprigged muslin, her pink parasol, beribboned gypsy hat, and the long mane-like curls that swung over her shoulders, Cissy entered the house and was shown to the large low drawing-room on the ground-floor. She once more inhaled its hot potpourri fragrance, in which the spice of the Castilian rose-leaves of the garden was dominant. A few boys, whom she recognized as the choristers of the Mission and her fellow-pupils, were already awaiting her with some degree of anxiety and impatience. ”

“ Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining for two cowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head rather forward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her.
All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?—the same sort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed they did. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness from the world’s actuality? ”

“ That afternoon the colliers trooping home in the winter afternoon were rejoiced with a spectacle: Kishwégin, in her deerskin, fringed gaiters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down her back, and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, riding astride on a tall white horse, followed by Max in chieftain’s robes and chieftain’s long head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others in war-paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They carried bows and spears. Ciccio was without his blanket, naked to the waist, in war-paint, and brandishing a long spear. ”

“ Just at this time news from Spain became more and more gloomy for the Carthaginians. The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of twenty-six, made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though [Pg 84] never a great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and had the gift of winning men to his side. Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he was merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering as possible. ”

“ But the two brothers did not love Ciccu any better because he had succeeded when they hoped he would have failed, and one day they spoke to the king. ‘It is all very well for Ciccu to have got possession of the sword, but it would have been far more to your majesty’s honour if he had captured the Man-eater himself.’ The king thought upon these words, and at last he said to Ciccu, ‘Ciccu, I shall never rest until you bring me back the Man-eater himself. ”

“ The princess was asleep, but Ciccu seized her arm and pulled her out of bed, and beat her till she gave back the purse. Then he took up the coverlet, and wished he was safe in his own house.
No sooner had he gone than the princess hastened to her father and complained of her sufferings. Then the king rose up in a fury, and commanded Ciccu to be brought before him. ‘You richly deserve death,’ said he, ‘but I will allow you to live if you will instantly hand over to me the coverlet, the purse, and the horn.’
What could Ciccu do? Life was sweet, and he was in the power of the king ”

“ A peculiar character is imparted to the vegetation of this province by the growth over large tracts of evergreen shrubs and large herbaceous plants belonging to the Cistineae and Labiatae. Areas covered by the Cistineae are known to the Spaniards as jarales, and are particularly extensive in the Mancha Alta and on the slopes of the Sierra Morena, where the ladanum bush (Cistus ladaniferus) is specially abundant ; those covered by the Labiatae are known as tomillares (from tomillo, thyme) , and occur chiefly in the south, south-west and east of the table-land of New Castile. ”

“ Lovely, in the lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with two great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild scrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered, massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore, and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of the beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him.
Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight. ”

“ Ciccio, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose to his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up.
“Basta!” he said. “Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How are you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?—great beast.”
“Ciccio,” said Geoffrey solemnly. “I love thee, I love thee as a brother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thou knowest. But—” and he puffed fiercely—“I am the slave of Allaye, I am the tame bear of Allaye.”
“Get up,” said Ciccio, “get up! Per bacco! She doesn’t want a tame bear.” He smiled down on his friend. ”

“ When they reached the country of the Man-eater, Ciccu made all the church bells toll and a proclamation to be made. ‘Ciccu, the servant of the king, is dead.’ The Man-eater soon heard what everyone was saying, and was glad in his heart, for he thought, ‘Well, it is good news that the thief who stole my sword is dead.’ But Ciccu bought an axe and a saw, and cut down a pine tree in the nearest wood, and began to hew it into planks. ”

“ When we arrived, the sleepy soldiers, who were lounging before the gates, threw them open to let the carriage enter, and we drew up in from of the great cypress, known by the name of "Montezuma's Cypress," a most stupendous tree, dark, solemn and stately, its branches unmoved as the light wind played amongst them, of most majestic height, and forty-one feet in circumference. ”

“ Beg the king to give you fifty gold pieces and leave to ride me, and the rest will be easy.’ Ciccu believed what the horse said, and prayed the king to grant him what he asked. Then the two friends set out, but the horse chose what roads he pleased, and directed Ciccu in everything.
It took them many days’ hard riding before they reached the country where the Man-eater lived, and then the horse told Ciccu to stop a group of old women who were coming chattering through the wood, and offer them each a shilling if they would collect a number of mosquitos and tie them up in a bag. ”

“ The brushwood of Moréna consists over vast areas—many hundreds of square miles—of the gum-cistus, a sticky-leaved shrub that grows shoulder-high on the stoniest ground. Wherever a slightly more generous soil permits, the cistus is interspersed and thickened with rhododendron, brooms, myrtle, and a hundred cognate plants. On the richer slopes and dells there crowd together a matted jungle of lentisk and arbutus, white buck-thorn and holly, all intertwined with vicious prehensile briar and woodbine, together with heaths, genista, giant ferns, and gorse of a score of species. ”

“ In our enchanted garden on the Esquiline we had cypresses—the most perfect in all Italy—orange trees and ilexes, and one or two flowering junipers, but no shade trees or bits of woodland like those in the Borghese, where the ancient oaks and chestnuts and beeches meet high overhead along avenues so extensive that to make the round twice in an afternoon was as much as most people ever did. ”

“ Scipio remained in Africa till he had arranged matters and won such a claim to Massinissa's gratitude that this king of Numidia was sure to watch over the interests of Rome. Scipio then returned home, and entered Rome with a grand triumph, all the nobler for himself that he did not lead Hannibal in his chains. He had been too generous to demand that so brave an enemy should be delivered up to him. He received the surname of Africanus, and was one of the most respected and beloved of Romans. ”

“ The birds sing well this morning, well as ever. The brown thrasher drowns the rest. The lark, and in the woods, the red-eye, veery, chewink, oven-bird, wood-thrush.
The cistus is well open now, with its broad cup-like flower, one of the most delicate yellow flowers, with large spring-yellow petals, and its stamens laid one way. It is hard to get home fresh; caducous and inclined to droop. The yellow Bethlehem-star is of a deeper yellow than the cistus, a very neat flower, grass-like.
p. m. On the river, by Hubbard's Meadow. ”

“ When the king was told that there was another man with a basket of figs he cried out, ‘Oh, have him in, have him in! I suppose it is a wager!’ But Ciccu uncovered the basket, and there lay a pile of beautiful ripe figs. And the king was delighted, and emptied them himself on the silver dish, and gave five florins to Ciccu, and offered besides to take him into his service. Ciccu accepted gratefully, but said he must first return home and give the five florins to his brothers. ”

“ By dominating the main trail linking the Plains Indians and the Pueblos of the Southwest, Cicuyé had become an even more powerful trade center than Háwikuh, and its people boasted that no enemy had been able to conquer them. But what of these bearded 77 strangers who, with their swords and horses, had overrun Háwikuh in a single rush? Acting perhaps on the advice of Bigotes and Cacique, the people of Cicuyé decided to be friendly. An unarmed delegation marched out beating drums, playing on bone whistles, and carrying gifts. ”

“ The carriage stopped near the Meta Sudans, the door was opened, and the young men, eagerly alighting, found themselves opposite a cicerone, who appeared to have sprung up from the ground.
The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they thus had two conductors; nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this abundant supply of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone who seizes upon you directly you set foot in your hotel, and never quits you while you remain in the city, there is also a special cicerone belonging to each monument nay, almost to each part of a monument. ”

“ The next day, when they were all cutting wood, he said to his brothers, ‘That old coverlet and the purse are no use to you; I wish you would give them to me. I have a fancy for them, for the sake of old times.’ Now Peppe and Alfin were very fond of Ciccu, and never refused him anything, so they let him have the coverlet and the purse without a word. When he had got them safely Ciccu went on, ‘Dear brothers, I am tired of the forest. I want to live in the town, and work at some trade.’
‘O Ciccu! stay with us,’ they cried. ‘We are very happy here ”

“ Cyrus Harding and Herbert, after having examined that part of the Far West where the cycas grew, took their bearings, and returned to Granite House, where they made known their discovery.
The next day the settlers went to collect some, and returned to Granite House with an ample supply of cycas stems. The engineer constructed a press, with which to extract the mucilaginous juice mingled with the fecula, and he obtained a large quantity of flour, which Neb soon transformed into cakes and puddings. ”

“ Cicereius, and Cneius Scipio, the son of the great Africanus, were competitors for the office of prætor. The crowd followed Cicereius, and left Scipio unattended. Cicereius saw this with much concern, and desiring an audience of the people, he descended from the place where the candidates were to sit, in the eye of the multitude, pleaded for his adversary, and with an ingenuous modesty (which it is impossible to feign) represented to them, how much it was to their dishonour, that a virtuous son of Africanus should not be preferred to him, or any other man whatsoever. ”

“ Ciccio had gone to bed without washing.
“Why does the bed rustle?” she asked him.
It was stuffed with dry maize-leaves, the dry sheathes from the cobs—stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among dead foliage.
Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water but throw it out of the door. Then she washed her face, thoroughly, in good hot water. What a blessed relief! She sighed as she dried herself.
“It does one good!” she sighed.
Ciccio watched her as she quickly brushed her hair. She was almost stupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. ”

“ Re-enter the brave Louis—he is angry with Kishwégin—enter the brave Ciccio hauling a bear, apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle. The prisoner is tripped up—falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear. Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two braves converse in dumb show, Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. ”