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[M.76L] [M.76] St Mark's Place 76
* Compare Dante’s feeling and statement concerning Fortune
De ben chi son commessi alla Fortuna - and following conversation. Chance. I never enter St Mark Place without some thought of this kind:
nor without some better understanding why the old Lombard
builder of San Zenone made the window let the light of its
west front through a wheel of Fortune: For them the fancies
of men have suffered the Sea Change of half a score
centuries - then their minds have met from the east and west
in that its narrow vortex - and the currents of a hundred
nations have wheeled & eddied in the narrow vortex - ever
with new glory rising from the foam - and the Stern Pisan
and the Dreamy Greek & and the wild restless Arab, and the languid
Ottomite and the strong Teuton, then the patience of early Christianity and
and the enthusiastic mediaeval superstition, and the
fire of ancient and all the rationalism of recent infidelity,
have all had their work, and all their time - There the
marbles of a thousand mountains have been laboured, each
by those who dwelt at their feet, and the offerings of
a thousand isles had met in one cloud of incense - and out
of this masque and mosaic of Kingdoms and times, there have
arisen one wild Sea Harmony, the seetest that ever
human soul conceived.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]