Monte della Sibilla Efsanesi veya Kraliçe Sibille'in Cenneti - The Legend of Monte della Sibilla; or, Le paradis de la reine Sibille

THE LEGEND OF MONTE DELLA SIBILLA

OR "LE PARADIS DE LA REINE SIBILLE"

CLIVE BELL

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY

LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF

AT THE HOGARTH PRESS

HOGARTH HOUSE RICHMOND

1923

TO POLLY FLINDERS

If you will stop and take a drink
Where I did, late one afternoon
In April, you may see turn pink
A patch of snow, which very soon
Yellows to green: it seems quite near;
But is, in fact, up Norcia way
Or further: the effect's more queer
Than beautiful: and should you say
To the padrone, Gian Mannino,
"What peak is that which looks so odd?"
He'll answer, "Monte Sibillino—
But they've bunged up the hole, thank God."
Herr Hans Van Branbourg, 1310
To 1352 or so,—
(A period, it seems, when men
Not unlike us were apt to go
Five hundred miles to get a thrill
They might have had for sitting still),—
Branbourg, I say, having done the lakes
And all the sights of La Toscana,
(A jaunt which now a fortnight takes,
Less then, because one skipped Verona,
"The Tomb" not having found its owner [1]),
Came southward by the Val Chiana;
Heard of the Sybil, wouldn't wait,—no,
Not a moment, at Spoleto,
But set off promptly for the cave.
The natives told him he was brave,—
Thinking him mad. Had not a monk,
Il don Antonio Fumato,
There lost his wits, and, in a funk,
Five bold young bucks from near Fossato,
Who made the same attempt before,
At what they heard and what they saw,
(Or was that later?) quaked like jelly,
Shaming the sires of Gabrielle?
They had seen things to make saints curse,—
A gate that kep

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